Concepts for the removal of legal barriers to planning climate protection in Germany’s buildings sector

This project examines ways to remove legal barriers to climate protection in the buildings sector with a special focus on the energy refurbishment of existing buildings.

The first part of the project deals with legal concepts for financing measures geared to the energy rehabilitation of buildings. In a first step possible regulatory instruments – both those being discussed by experts in specialist contexts and further feasible options – are identified, with which effective incentives for the implementation of ambitious energy refurbishments can be generated. The incentives should function as independently as possible from the incalculabilities of public budgets. The different options are then systematically analysed for their compatibility with the overarching requirements of Germany’s national law and EU law as well as for their feasibility. Following an expert assessment of the functionality of those options categorised as legally positive, the project team develops a well-coordinated set of different instruments which are partly based on public charges and partly on the commitments of private actors and allow for the introduction of a legal entitlement of building owners to support.

The second part of the project discusses the removal of (non-economic) legal barriers to the energy refurbishment of buildings. First of all the project team provides an overview of such barriers in different areas of the law (like tenancy law, residential property law, building law, among others). Then the team focuses on specific legal barriers in the law on architectural and engineering fees as well as in public procurement law for construction contracts. Continuing along the same lines, concrete suggestions are developed for legal improvements.