Flood of applications for support: is the housing allowance also paid out retrospectively?

With the housing benefit reform, significantly more households should be relieved of the housing costs since the turn of the year. This leads to a huge flood of applications and long waiting times. Will applicants lose money as a result?

In view of the flood of applications for housing benefit, Minister of Construction Klara Geywitz called on the citizens concerned to be patient. “Distributing four billion is of course a huge task,” said the SPD politician on ARD. “Anyone who applies for housing benefit in January and gets it approved, whether it’s in February or early March, will also receive the money retrospectively from January,” she emphasized. The housing benefit offices of the municipalities are responsible for the applications.

Geywitz describes the demand by the tenants’ association to issue more provisional decisions in view of the expected waiting times of several months as a “great suggestion” that has already been taken up. In urgent cases, the authorities could therefore temporarily approve the housing benefit. So that every application does not have to be processed twice, the authorities could decide to automatically extend notifications, according to the minister.

Since the turn of the year, more households are to be relieved of housing benefit – up to 1.4 million households are to be added to the 600,000 housing benefit households so far. You can apply for housing benefit if you do not receive social benefits but still have little money. Simplified applications should ensure that the housing benefit flows quickly. In Berlin, for example, the main form alone comprises eight densely printed pages. Detailed information on the income and assets of all members of a household is required.

The Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development and Building has made a new housing benefit calculator available on its website, which can be used to check in advance whether there is a claim for support and how much the benefit could be. The housing benefit calculator 2023 only serves as a first orientation. Only the competent housing benefit authority can provide legally binding information on a possible entitlement to housing benefit. Those interested can obtain application forms for housing benefit from the local housing benefit authority of the municipal, city, office or district administration. You can also get comprehensive advice there.

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