City Council meeting: Far too few resources to tackle rent gouging in Leipzig + Video

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The Left Party had got off to such an enthusiastic start with its ‘rent profiteering’ app. Over 6,000 suspected cases of completely exorbitant rents have already been recorded in Leipzig using the app. It would then, in theory, be straightforward to report these cases to the city council, which would establish the breach of tenancy law and impose a fine. It sounds simple enough. Yet recent experience now shows that the lawmakers had no intention whatsoever of making it that easy for tenants. This became clear during question time at the city council meeting on 2 July.

The Left Party group was keen to find out how Leipzig’s Social Affairs Department was progressing in its efforts to tackle rent gouging in the city.

“Around two years ago, Die Linke launched the ‘exorbitant rent’ app in the Bundestag. This allows tenants to easily check whether their rent is excessive under the applicable legal regulations. If the rent exceeds the local comparative rent by more than 20 per cent, there is a strong suspicion of an unlawful rent increase. This constitutes an administrative offence that can be punished with fines. “If the rent exceeds the local comparative rent by more than 50 per cent, there is even a suspicion of a criminal offence under Section 291 of the German Criminal Code (StGB),” stated the Left Party parliamentary group.

“Following a case in October 2025 in which a landlord in Berlin was ordered to pay a fine of 26,000 euros and to refund 22,000 euros in overpaid rent, another case was concluded in Frankfurt am Main at the start of June, in which a property company must repay over 26,000 euros in overpaid rent to a shared flat. The city of Leipzig has been investigating cases of rent profiteering and excessive rent since last year, despite limited staff resources and a complex procedure.”

However, describing the procedure as ‘complex’ is probably an understatement. This comes as no surprise, as the underlying law dates back to 1934. And that is precisely what makes it difficult for tenants to seek justice or even to recover the rent they have overpaid.

And it all starts with the fact that the excess rent paid does not go to the Leipzig social welfare office at all, but to the state.

It could hardly be more complicated

“In the context of administrative offence proceedings concerning excessive rent (§ 5 WiStrG), the illegal surplus revenue must be paid to the state in accordance with § 8(1), first sentence, WiStrG,” is how the social welfare office describes this highly complex process. “In order for the affected tenant households to be reimbursed for this excess revenue, the aggrieved party must submit an application for a refund during the ongoing proceedings (Section 9(1) of the WiStrG).

The competent authority decides on this application directly in the notice of fine or – if an appeal has been lodged against the notice – the competent court does so during the main hearing.

If the money has already been paid to the state by the offender, the procedure under Section 9(2) of the WiStrG applies: the aggrieved party must bring a civil action against the offender and obtain a final and binding judgement. On the basis of this judgement, the enforcement authority orders that the aggrieved party be compensated retrospectively from the excess proceeds that have already been paid.

There are no binding statutory time limits for repayment to the tenant households; the timing of the payment depends entirely on the duration of the relevant administrative, judicial or civil proceedings.”

It is as if the legislature had intended precisely this: to further deter tenants who have been cheated from asserting their rights through the courts.

One case officer for 541 cases

Of the more than 6,000 cases identified via the rent exploitation app, only 541 have so far been reported to the city.

And even of these, only a handful have actually been processed so far, according to the social services department: “By 24 June 2026, the investigation of the facts had been completed in eleven cases and the files handed over to the fines authority. Three cases were dropped, and eight were referred to the public prosecutor’s office on suspicion of a criminal offence. In four of these cases, the suspicion of a criminal offence was not confirmed, meaning these cases have been returned to the jurisdiction of the Central Fines Authority.”

The reason for this is simply that there is only one member of staff in the Social Services Department who deals with these cases, and who has to examine the facts in detail and also inspect the flats. This is a point that Enrico Stange, a city councillor for The Left, picked up on.

Since this is an administrative offence procedure, it is a mandatory duty of the city, not a voluntary one. Consequently, the federal or state government should actually be providing funding to cover the necessary staff posts for prosecuting this administrative offence.

But not even that has been clarified, confirmed Mayor Burkhard Jung. The Association of German Cities is now pressing for the age-old tenancy law dating back to “Prussian times” to finally be modernised. He even hopes that this will happen before the end of this legislative term.

Because, as the prosecution of rent gouging is not, under current legislation, strictly speaking a mandatory duty, the single post that Dr Martina Münch created within her department for this purpose is under the threat of being scrapped as part of budget consolidation. This is because the 300 posts the city intends to cut are to come primarily from the area of non-statutory tasks.

It is only logical that Enrico Stange pressed the issue persistently and found himself dealing with a mayor who understood exactly what he was getting at. Yet, as is so often the case, the problem lies in Berlin, where the truly important legislative changes have so far been diligently ignored.