Housing Management Act

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Basic data
Title: Housing Management Act
Abbreviation: WBewG (not official)
Type: Federal law
Scope: Federal Republic of Germany
Legal matter: Housing
Issued on: March 31, 1953
( Federal Law Gazette I p. 97 )
Entry into force on: July 1, 1953
Expiry: December 31, 1968
( BGBl. I p. 389 , BGBl. I p. 1251 )
Please note the note on the applicable legal version.

The Housing Management Act transferred the regulations on the compulsory management of housing from the Control Council Act No. 18 into federal law. In constitutional terms, the law was legitimized by the special provision of Article 117, Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law, which allowed restrictions on the fundamental right to freedom of movement in the federal territory until the housing shortage after the Second World War was overcome .

The law put the entire living space of the Federal Republic of Germany under compulsory management by the local housing authorities; Exceptions were publicly subsidized apartments and apartments that were created without public loans or subsidies and were ready for occupancy between June 21, 1948 ( currency reform ) and December 31, 1949 (Sections 1–3).

The housing authorities were able to direct those looking for accommodation into vacant apartments, but also into the apartments of strangers, provided that the housing authorities felt that these were underoccupied (Section 10). Homeowners had to report vacant living space to the housing authorities immediately (Section 7). The briefing established a rental contract under private law between the apartment owner and the apartment seeker (§§ 15–16).

There was a ban on misappropriation (Section 21) and an absolute ban on the demolition of apartments (Section 22). Housing authorities could also modernize apartments against the will of the owner, ie equip them with contemporary sanitary and utility facilities (Section 23). Instructions from the housing authorities could be enforced by way of administrative compulsion (Section 27).

The Housing Management Act also specified protection against dismissal, which was regulated in the Tenant Protection Act (MSchG), which continued to apply after 1949 (Section 28). In the event of termination, the tenant could avail himself of special enforcement protection if he could not be offered replacement living space (§§ 30–31).

With the law on the dismantling of the compulsory housing economy and on a social tenancy and housing law of June 23, 1960, it was left to the states to abolish the compulsory management of housing for certain districts and urban districts. By December 31, 1965 at the latest, compulsory management should be abolished nationwide by repealing the Housing Management Act. However, the deadline could not be kept due to the tense situation on the housing market in numerous cities in Germany and was subsequently set for December 31, 1967, for certain named cities ( Hamburg , Bonn , Freiburg im Breisgau , Munich , district of Bonn , district of Göttingen , District of Munich ) and for the State of Berlin postponed to December 31, 1968. The rent freeze and the ban on dismissal were lifted at the same time as the introduction of housing benefit as a social benefit; Exceptions only applied to Berlin due to the special features of the local housing market; the rents remained frozen there until 1973. Until then, transitional regulations under the federal rent laws applied .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Law on tenant protection and rental clearance offices of June 1, 1923, RGBl. I p. 353 ; Tenant Protection Act in the version of December 15, 1942, RGBl. I p. 712 ; Home exchange in the early years of the Federal Republic. Tenancy law regulations Scientific services of the German Bundestag , documentation of August 4, 2016, p. 3; BGH, judgment of September 19, 2018 - VIII ZR 231/17 marginal no. 29 ff. (On the Tenant Protection Act)
  2. ↑ BGBl. I p. 389