Tenants receiving welfare benefits
Relationship between landlord and job center
By concluding a rental agreement, you establish a legal relationship with your contractual partner, the tenant.
The rights and obligations arising from the agreement only apply between you as contractual partners.
This remains the case even if your tenant is a recipient of basic income support, and even if the job center pays the rent directly into your account. Such a payment constitutes a different type of entitlement to receive payment. No payment claims are established.
If rent arrears arise due to unpaid or partially paid rent, there are no enforceable claims against the job center, even if the rent has previously been transferred directly to your account.
Direct payment of rent
Direct payment of rent to you is possible if appropriate use by the beneficiary cannot be guaranteed. This is the case if there are rent arrears that justify extraordinary termination of the tenancy agreement.
If your tenant has such rent arrears, please notify us in writing. We require the full name of your tenant, if you know it, the joint household number, and the amount of rent arrears with the due date. If, after hearing your tenant, the job center finds that there are no obstacles, the rent will be transferred directly to you in the future.
Since your tenant must first be heard by the job center before the direct payment is made, you must expect a corresponding processing time.
A mere delay or irregularity in rent payments does not entitle you to direct payment.
Regardless of the legal option to pay the rent to you even if the tenant does not consent, your tenant may voluntarily declare that the rent should be transferred to you.
To do this, your landlord must complete the form "Rent to Landlord" and submit it to the job center.
The tenant can revoke this declaration at any time. You then have no legal claim to further direct payments.
Form for rent to landlord
Guarantee for timely rent payment?
The job center can only make direct payments to you if you are entitled to benefits.
Entitlement to rent payments may be waived in whole or in part if, for example, your tenant earns income that is counted toward basic security benefits. This may result in only a proportional entitlement or no entitlement at all.
Missing/incomplete rent payments
Rent payments may also be wholly or partially withheld if applications are not submitted or are submitted too late, if there is a reduction in benefits due to breaches of duty on the part of your tenant, or if members of your household who are not entitled to basic security benefits have to pay their share of the rent themselves (rent is calculated and paid on a per capita basis).
Direct payment of rent to you can only be made in full and on time if there is a legitimate entitlement to benefits, which is claimed by your tenant from us in good time, and if there is sufficient entitlement to basic security benefits.
Heating and operating costs statement
The addressee of the statement is your tenant, even if the rent is paid directly to you by the job center.
If additional payments are due from a statement, these can be taken into account as one-time accommodation costs. The prerequisite for this is that your tenant submits the statement to the job center in a timely manner.
If the rent is paid directly to you, the costs of the additional payment that are eligible for reimbursement will also be paid directly to you.
This does not apply to settlement amounts that were already due before your tenant began receiving benefits.
The job center will check the bill to see if the costs can be covered. In particular, they will check whether your bill shows the advance payments known to the job center and whether your tenant is actually entitled to have the costs covered. Such an entitlement does not exist, for example, if the benefit payment has already ended when the bill is delivered, possibly due to the tenant starting work or moving away.
Under certain circumstances, it may also happen that only a portion of the bill is covered.
The job center will inform your tenant of the result of the billing review by means of a notice. This notice will also state the reasons for non-acceptance or only partial acceptance of the additional payment. If you have any questions about the amount of the reimbursement or the status of the processing, please contact your tenant.
Here, too, information is subject to data protection, so the job center cannot provide you with any information.