Tenants receiving basic income support

Relationship Between Landlords and the Job Center

By entering into a lease agreement, you establish a legal relationship with your contracting party, the tenant.

The rights and obligations arising from the contract apply only between you as the contracting party.

Even if your tenant receives basic income support, this does not change; this remains the case even if the Job Center pays the rent directly into your account. Such a payment constitutes a different type of authorization to receive funds. It does not establish any claims to payment.

If rent arrears arise due to rent not being paid or not being paid in full, no enforceable claims against the Job Center arise, even if the rent has previously been transferred directly to your account.

Direct Rent Payment

Direct payment of the rent to you is possible if it cannot be ensured that the beneficiary will use the funds for their intended purpose. This is the case when there are rent arrears that justify extraordinary termination of the lease.

If your tenant has such rent arrears, please notify us in writing. We need your tenant’s full name, the household group number (if known to you), and the amount of the rent arrears along with the due date. If, after the Jobcenter has heard your tenant’s side of the story, there are no grounds for objection, the rent will be transferred directly to you in the future.

Since your tenant must first be heard by the Job Center before direct payment can be made, you should expect a corresponding processing time.

A mere delay or irregularity in rent payments does not entitle the tenant to direct payment.

Regardless of the legal option to have the rent paid to you even without the tenant’s consent, there is the possibility of a voluntary declaration by your tenant to have the rent transferred to you.

To do this, your tenant must fill out the “Rent to Landlord” form and submit it to the job center.

The tenant may revoke this declaration at any time. You will then have no legal claim to further direct payments.

Guarantee of on-time rent payment?

The Job Center can only make direct payments to you if you are eligible for benefits.

Entitlement to rent payments may be waived in whole or in part if, for example, your tenant earns income that is counted toward their basic income support benefits. This may result in only a partial entitlement or no entitlement at all.

Direct payment of rent to you can only be made in full and on time if there is a legitimate entitlement to benefits that your tenant has asserted with us in a timely manner and if there is a sufficient entitlement to basic income support.

Heating and Operating Cost Statements

The recipient of the statement is your tenant, even if the rent is paid directly to you by the Job Center.

If back payments are due based on a statement, these can be considered one-time housing costs. This is contingent on your tenant submitting the statement to the Jobcenter in a timely manner.

If the rent is paid directly to you, the eligible costs of the additional payment will also be paid directly to you.
This does not apply to billing amounts that became due before your tenant began receiving benefits.

To determine whether the statement costs will be covered, the Job Center reviews the statement. In particular, it checks whether your statement reflects the advance payments known to the Job Center and whether your tenant is even entitled to have the costs covered. Such an entitlement does not exist, for example, if benefit receipt has already ended at the time the statement is submitted—possibly due to the tenant starting work or moving away.

In some cases, the statement of account may be reimbursed only on a pro-rata basis.

The Job Center will notify your tenant of the outcome of the statement review via an official notice. This notice will also specify the reasons for any refusal or partial approval of the back payment. If you have questions regarding the amount of the reimbursement or the status of the claim, please contact your tenant.

Here, too, information is subject to data protection laws, so the Job Center cannot provide you with any details on this matter.