Second Housing Act
| Basic data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Housing and Family Home Act |
| Short title: | II. Housing Act (not official) |
| Abbreviation: | II. WoBauG |
| Type: | Federal law |
| Scope: | Federal Republic of Germany |
| Legal matter: | Construction and housing |
| References : | 2330-2 |
| Original version from: | June 27, 1956 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 523 ) |
| Entry into force on: | unknown |
| New announcement from: | August 19, 1994 ( BGBl. I p. 2166 ) |
| Expiry: | December 31, 2001 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 1149 ) |
| GESTA : | B030 |
| Weblink: | Text of the WoFG |
| Please note the note on the applicable legal version. | |
The Second Housing Act , the official name of the Housing and Family Home Act (II. WoBauG), was the basis of social housing in Germany for many years . It replaced the First Housing Act from 1950.
According to Section 1, the aim of the law was "to eliminate the shortage of housing and to create broad-based property for large sections of the population." Three goals were thus pursued: 1. to increase the housing stock, especially in regions with a lack of housing, 2. to provide living space for sections of the population who cannot adequately support themselves on their own, and 3. to promote home ownership. Here, the law followed the paradigm that the market alone, due to the peculiarities of the good "apartment", cannot ensure a sufficient supply of the population with living space, and that there are population groups who either because of their low income or because they belong to a social Marginalized groups (disabled people) or because of their low social prestige (foreigners) are exposed to discrimination on the free housing market.
The First Housing Act named the creation of 1.8 million social housing by 1956 as a specific goal. After this target was exceeded with over 2 million social housing, the legislature in the Second Housing Act did not mention specific target stocks and deleted the term in the 1970s "Housing shortage" from the law as a reaction to the sufficient supply of the population with housing from the perspective of the legislature.
The three-part division of social housing into three pillars was adopted from the First Housing Act:
- Publicly funded housing construction (so-called first funding path ): The construction of family homes, condominiums and rental apartments was funded from public funds if the apartment users did not exceed certain income limits. In return, the landlord was only allowed to demand the so-called cost rent .
- Tax-privileged housing construction: Apartments could be exempt from property tax for a maximum of ten years if they did not exceed the size of the apartment by more than 20 percent. The tenant could invoke the collection of the cost rent at most, if this was exceeded, in addition, rent increases were limited by the law regulating the rent amount (MHG). In 1965, state funding was introduced, which mainly benefited homeowners and was also called the second funding route .
- privately financed housing construction that did not receive any subsidies from government funds. The law regulating the rent level also applied to these apartments.
According to the will of the legislature, the public funding was provided jointly by the federal and state governments; For this purpose, the federal government made considerable financial resources available to the states in accordance with Article 104a of the Basic Law. In the course of time, however, the municipalities also had to spend considerable funds in order to be able to achieve the cost rent prescribed by the federal states for new buildings. The funds could be provided as a capital subsidy (low-interest loan to finance the construction project) and as an income subsidy (loan to cover the repayment installments and the running costs of the apartment).
The landlord was only allowed to rent publicly subsidized apartments to people whose income did not exceed certain limits and who were entitled to move into an apartment of the corresponding size based on the size of the household, which had to be proven by a housing entitlement certificate . However, the landlord also had the right to decide whether to rent the apartment to the tenant in the case of publicly subsidized apartments; there was no forced management of social housing.
The Second Housing Act suffered from a number of shortcomings that burdened social housing in Germany:
- The numerous persons entitled to move into social housing (in 1997 35 to 40% of the entire West German population) were compared to only a comparatively few publicly subsidized apartments (2.1 million in the same period). This ultimately resulted in a selection - not wanted by the legislature - among those entitled, in which certain sections of the population have a lower chance of actually being able to move into a publicly subsidized apartment from the outset.
- The cost rent principle led to complex and expensive construction work; Social housing was often better equipped than the old building, as the state paid for a large part of the costs and therefore there was no incentive for inexpensive construction. The politically desired equalization of rents in metropolitan areas and rural areas led to an extreme distortion of the rent level in large cities.
- The income of the beneficiaries was only checked when moving in. If the income increased after moving in, the tenants continued to benefit from the extremely low rents and thus had no incentive to change to a privately financed and therefore significantly more expensive apartment. The misplacement tax introduced in 1981 could not adequately solve the problem; In 1993, 42% of the residents of social housing were wrong.
The Second Housing Act expired in 2002. While the framework law on social housing construction was incorporated into the new Housing Promotion Act, responsibility for housing promotion fell to the federal states, which, however, received compensation payments from the federal government for the federal subsidies that were no longer applicable until 2019.
literature
- Burkhard Pahnke: Income- oriented promotion of social rental housing construction: inventory and criticism . Peter Lang , Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3631331533