The Hessian Tenant Protection Ordinance for the Frankfurt am Main city area is legally invalid. The Frankfurt Regional Court ruled this in a recent judgment, fully upholding the previous ruling by the Frankfurt District Court. The subject of the proceedings was the state ordinance extended in November 2025 for a period of one year, which was intended, among other things, to enforce the rent cap at local level.
According to a court spokesperson, the ruling serves as a landmark precedent. The decision removes the legal basis from previous regulatory practice in the Hessian metropolis and is expected to send an immediate signal for similar legal disputes across the entire federal state.
Property owner associations criticise ministerial drafting
The verdict met with strong approval from industry associations. Younes Frank Ehrhardt, managing director of Haus & Grund Hessen, sees the judicial decision as confirmation of the association's legal stance. The property owners' association had previously warned on repeated occasions that the tenant protection ordinance could not hold up legally for Hesse as a whole. It attributed this to procedural and drafting flaws by the responsible ministry, which had introduced considerable uncertainty into existing tenancies.
According to Haus & Grund Hessen, the time has come to abolish the measure entirely. After ten years of the tenant protection ordinance, no tangible relief or improvement in the market situation can be observed for either tenants or landlords. To support this view, Ehrhardt pointed to Schleswig-Holstein, where the rent cap was abolished five years ago without producing adverse distortions compared to other federal states.
Impact on market mechanisms and new housing construction
Ehrhardt takes a fundamentally critical view of state price controls in the housing sector. Price caps have an adverse effect on the residential market, as they deter investors and exert a lasting drag on private investment in residential construction. The ordinance therefore represents a major obstacle to the urgently needed creation of new housing.
- —Regional Court confirms the invalidity of the extended tenant protection ordinance for Frankfurt
- —Ruling classified as a potential precedent for the whole of Hesse
- —Criticism of technical drafting flaws in the ordinance and lack of market impact after ten years in force
- —Calls to abolish the rent cap following the example of Schleswig-Holstein to encourage new investment
