1. Decisions of the Federal Social Court on social assistance (SGB XII) and employment promotion law (SGB III)
1.1 – BSG, judgment of 02/23/2023 – B 8 SO 4/22 R
Social assistance – Assistance with care – Care level 0 – Assistance with maintaining the household – Care service – Adequacy
Regarding the entitlement to reimbursement of costs for domestic care by a care service in the case of so-called care level 0.
Ruling: Care service is not obligated to step in as domestic help
Elderly and sick people who are not in need of care and require household help can be referred to the Minijob Center by the social welfare provider.
This also applies to those affected who had care level zero before the introduction of the Third Care Strengthening Act on May 1, 2017, and for whom a care service had provided household help until then.
Source: www.evangelisch.de
Full text: www.sozialgerichtsbarkeit.de
1.2 – BSG, judgment of June 6, 2023 – B 11 AL 38/21 R
(Unemployment benefit entitlement – fulfillment of the qualifying period – other insured person – coincidence of a full disability pension from the statutory pension insurance with compulsory insurance employment – non-payment of the pension due to exceeding the earnings limit – other person exempt from insurance – requirement of Section 28 Paragraph 2 SGB VI – compulsory insurance relationship)
Despite receiving a full disability pension, insured against unemployment (principle of Tacheles e. V.)
Guidance note by the editor of Tacheles e. V.:
The receipt of a pension due to total incapacity for work, as required by Section 26 Paragraph 2 No. 3 of the German Social Code, Book III (SGB III), necessitates not only the approval of the pension but also its actual payment by a statutory pension insurance institution.
Source: www.socialgerichtsabilities.de
2. Decisions of the State Social Courts on basic income support under the German Social Code, Book II (SGB II)
2.1 – LSG Saxony-Anhalt, Judgment of 16.11.2022 – L 4 AS 350/21
Guiding principles
on the admissibility of an action for failure to act brought after more than 10 years against official letters of demand which were not challenged by the legal remedy of objection after their issuance.
Source: www.socialgerichtsabilities.de
2.2 – LSG Saxony-Anhalt, Judgment of 22.06.2023 – L 4 AS 92/20
KdUH for a two-person household in the comparison area surrounding Naumburg
Guiding Principles
1. The KdUH guideline of the Burgenland district, applicable from 1 June 2012, is based on a coherent concept for a two-person household after recalculation within the framework of the correction of the comparison areas and after weighting of the determined guideline values (correction report by the company A&K from January 2020 and the statement by the company A&K from 3 May 2023).
2. The four comparison areas most recently established by the Burgenland district are not objectionable. The former medium-sized centers of the district, and now so-called central places—the towns of Naumburg, Weißenfels, and Zeitz—are the service centers for public services within their catchment areas. They and their respective catchment areas each represent homogeneous residential and living spaces. The division made between the town of Naumburg and its surrounding area based on significant differences in rental prices is not objectionable.
3. To ensure the representativeness of the collected data for a housing cost concept, the rental housing market must be realistically represented. The data collection must be as similar as possible to the target population in its composition and in the structure of the relevant characteristics.
4. A housing cost assessment (KdUH) concept is not representative if institutional landlords are not represented in the rent survey according to their market share, but rather significantly overrepresented compared to private landlords. This deficiency can currently be corrected by a weighted recalculation – differentiated by net rent and operating costs – in which small private landlords on the one hand and large institutional landlords on the other are considered according to their actual share of the rental housing market.
5. An index update using the sub-indices of the State Statistical Office for the development of rental and operating costs in Saxony-Anhalt is permissible.
Source: www.socialgerichtsabilities.de
2.3 – LSG Saxony-Anhalt, Judgment of 22.06.2023 – L 4 AS 550/15
KdUH for a two-person household in the city of Naumburg
Guiding Principles
1. The KdUH guideline of the Burgenland district, applicable from 1 June 2012, is based on a coherent concept for a two-person household after recalculation within the framework of the correction of the comparison areas and after weighting of the determined guideline values (correction report by the company A&K from January 2020 and the statement by the company A&K from 3 May 2023).
2. The four comparison areas most recently established by the Burgenland district are not objectionable. The former medium-sized centers of the district, and now so-called central places—the towns of Naumburg, Weißenfels, and Zeitz—are the service centers for public services within their catchment areas. They and their respective catchment areas each represent homogeneous residential and living spaces. The division made between the town of Naumburg and its surrounding area based on significant differences in rental prices is not objectionable.
3. To ensure the representativeness of the collected data for a housing cost concept, the rental housing market must be realistically represented. The data collection must be as similar as possible to the target population in its composition and in the structure of the relevant characteristics.
4. A housing cost assessment (KdUH) concept is not representative if institutional landlords are not represented in the rent survey according to their market share, but rather significantly overrepresented compared to private landlords. This deficiency can currently be corrected by a weighted recalculation – differentiated by net rent and operating costs – in which small private landlords on the one hand and large institutional landlords on the other are considered according to their actual share of the rental housing market.
Source: www.socialgerichtsabilities.de
2.4 – LSG Hamburg, judgment of June 30, 2023 – L 4 AS 132/22 D
To cover court and legal fees incurred in connection with a civil lawsuit against the landlord.
Guiding principle of the editor of Tacheles e. V.:
1. The costs of the district court proceedings are not included in the needs for accommodation and heating within the meaning of Section 22 Paragraph 1 of the German Social Code, Book II (SGB II).
2. The assumption of costs for payment and eviction proceedings as an "annex" to benefits under Section 22 Paragraph 1 of the German Social Code, Book II (SGB II) (regarding this general possibility, see Federal Social Court (BSG), judgment of November 24, 2011 – B 14 AS 15/11; similarly, Higher Social Court (LSG) Baden-Württemberg, judgment of June 27, 2017 – L 9 AS 1742/14) is also not applicable in this case. Such a claim requires that the benefit recipient is exposed to these costs specifically due to incorrect handling of the case by the benefit provider and that the lawsuit is not their own fault. These requirements are not met here.
3. The assumption of the costs of the district court proceedings as debts of the plaintiff, based on Section 22 Paragraph 8 of the German Social Code, Book II (SGB II), is also not an option.
Source: www.landesrecht-hamburg.de
3. Decisions of the social courts on basic income support under the German Social Code, Book II (SGB II)
3.1 none
4. Decisions of the State Social Courts on Social Assistance (SGB XII)
4.1 – LSG Baden-Württemberg Judgment, dated 14 June 2023 – L 2 SO 1789/22
Guiding principles:
According to § 23 para. 3 sentence 6 SGB XII, benefits under Chapter 8 of the SGB XII, i.e., assistance to overcome special social difficulties, are (in principle) also available.
Source: lrbw.juris.de
Note:
published in the Tacheles case law ticker week 31/2023 – Foreigners can also receive assistance from the social welfare office to overcome particular social difficulties (e.g., assumption of the compensation for the provision of accommodation, health insurance costs, assumption of the costs of accommodation and, if necessary, care of the person concerned in the facility).
4.2 – LSG Baden-Württemberg, Judgment of 14 June 2023 – L 2 SO 2864/21
Guiding Principles
1. If the defendant has not collected any data on the availability and price of accessible housing, this may lead to the actual costs of accommodation and heating still being covered for a person in need who is dependent on such housing.
2. Regarding the question of when the six-month period according to § 141 SGB XII must be taken into account.
Source: lrbw.juris.de
4.3 – LSG Baden-Württemberg, Judgment of 14 June 2023 – L 2 SO 2552/22
Guiding principles:
There are no constitutional concerns regarding the fact that recipients of housing benefit (including those in so-called "mixed benefit communities" with recipients of benefits under the German Social Code, Book XII) did not receive a one-off payment to compensate for the additional expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic pursuant to Section 144 of the German Social Code, Book XII.
Source: lrbw.juris.de
4.4 – LSG Saxony-Anhalt, decision of 03.01.2023 – L 8 SO 39/22 B ER
Guiding principles
on the scope of integration assistance pursuant to Section 99 Paragraphs 1 and 4 of the German Social Code, Book IX (as amended on June 2, 2021, valid from July 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022) in conjunction with Sections 1 et seq. of the Integration Assistance Ordinance for an applicant who is not significantly disabled in preliminary legal protection proceedings for the provisional granting of a personal budget for a service provider whose owner is the court-appointed guardian of the applicant.
Source: www.socialgerichtsabilities.de
5. Miscellaneous information on Hartz IV, social assistance, asylum law, housing benefit law and other legal codes
5.1 – Medications etc. – For long-term care assistance, a co-payment of max. €120.48 per year – a contribution by attorney Markus Karpinski
Every person with statutory health insurance knows the drill: co-payments are required for medications, physiotherapy, hospital stays, and rehabilitation measures. For people living on basic income support or citizen's allowance, etc., the co-payment has always been limited to 1% for the chronically ill and to 2% of the received subsistence allowance (in 2023, €502 – the so-called standard benefit level 1) for all other recipients of these social benefits.
The Hamburg State Social Court has ruled that this now also applies to insured persons who receive assistance for care (Hamburg State Social Court, judgment of March 23, 2023 – L 1 KR 12/22).
More information: www.anwalt.de
5.2 – Basic income support and citizen's allowance: Full rent until the end of 2023 for those already receiving benefits before 2023 – an article by attorney Helge Hildebrandt
But what regulations apply to all those benefit recipients who were already receiving social benefits before January 1, 2023? Some social welfare agencies – such as the state capital Kiel – believe that the waiting period only applies to those who applied for benefits for the first time on or after January 1, 2023, and are therefore urging all other benefit recipients with excessively high rents to reduce their rent.
This is illegal, as a look at the law shows:
More information: sozialberatung-kiel.de
Note from the editor of Tacheles e. V.:
agreeing with the above; see SG Munich, decision of 13.02.2023 – S 13 AS 113/23 ER and LSG BB, decision of 19.06.2023 – L 18 AS 512/23 B ER, para. 6
Author of the case law ticker: Tacheles editor Detlef Brock.
Source: Tacheles case law ticker
