In the long-running dispute over the limits of reasonable housing costs for social welfare recipients in the Werra-Meißner district, the job center suffered a defeat before the Kassel Social Court. In extensive expedited proceedings initiated on September 19, 2017, the Kassel Social Court, in its decision of November 24, 2017 (Case No.: S 10 AS 158/17 ER) , ordered the Werra-Meißner job center to grant significantly higher housing cost benefits than previously provided.
The applicants, a 28-year-old single mother and her two-year-old son, moved into an apartment in Witzenhausen in August that the job center deemed too expensive, after failing to find a more affordable option. Although even the job center could not offer the applicants an apartment within its own limits, the benefits department reduced their payments from the actual housing costs of €470.00 to the supposedly reasonable housing costs of €337.28 – a reduction of €132.72. The job center justified the reduction by citing an expert opinion from the company Analyse und Konzepte, dated March 2014, which had established the limits for reasonable housing costs in the Werra-Meißner district based on supposedly valid surveys from 2013. Several appeals against the validity of this expert opinion are pending before the Hessian State Social Court (e.g., case numbers L 4 AY 11/17 and L 4 SO 171/17).
The Social Court of Kassel declared the so-called A+K expert opinion from March 2014 no longer applicable for the period from the date of receipt of the urgent application and, in determining the reasonable housing costs, based its decision on the values in Section 12 of the Housing Benefit Act (WoGG) plus a safety margin of 10% in rent level I, in accordance with the case law of the Federal Social Court. As requested, the court therefore ordered the job center to pay further benefits for housing costs in the amount of €78.52 per month.
“The figures in the 2014 report by the company Analyse und Konzept were absurdly low even at the time of its publication, and there was and still is hardly any rentable housing in the Werra-Meißner district at the calculated rents. It is more than gratifying that the Social Court has drawn the correct conclusions, at least for the current housing market situation, and declared the report no longer applicable,” said attorney Sven Adam, who represents the applicants, expressing his satisfaction with the outcome of the proceedings.
The court's decision of November 24, 2017 can be found [here]. No appeal is permitted against the court's decision, and the decision is therefore legally binding.
