Kirchrode in turmoil: Massive increase in hereditary construction interest rates provide protest!

In Hannover-Kirchrode, over 30 homeowners face massive changes in their inheritance contracts. Wiltrud Bartig-Friedlein, a person concerned, will in future have to pay 15,600 euros annually to the regional church of Hanover, instead of only 980 euros as before. This drastic increase is necessary because its hereditary law contract expires in three years and an extension requires higher payment. Similar offers have also received other residents, some of them up to 45 times the previous interest.

bartig-friedlein lives from her pension and the widow's pension of her husband and expresses fears to have to move out of your home due to the high costs. There is an adaptation of the inheritance interest because the leasehold has not been increased since the 1950s, which the previous payments kept very cheap. However, the Evangelical Jakobi community has offered to find individual solutions to avoid moving the residents.

increases in the inheritance interest and their background

The decisions of the Hanover regional church to the massive increases in inheritance interest rates are justified by the risely rising land guidelines since 2013. Erika Marten, a lawyer in the property presentation of the regional church office, said that the increase in value of the property in the current landscape value of 1,100 euros per square meter and an interest rate of four percent was reflected. Historically, the previous inheritance interest rates were based on the low ground land values ​​of the 1950s.

Furthermore, the church offered the house owners in the 1990s to buy their properties, but hardly anyone accepted this offer. An offer to premature extension of heritable building rights under favorable conditions in 2019 was also not very well received. In view of the current situation, the affected residents are planning a demonstration at Pentecost against the high hereditary construction interest and want to submit a counter offer that provides for the current amounts twelve.

If no agreement is reached, the residents of their usage rights are threatened to lose their property rights by 2028/29, combined with a compensation of only two thirds of the house value. Some residents have already tried to sell their houses, but failed due to the high future lease payments.

critics like Werner Lichtenberg have described the heritage law regulations as originally a measure to enable residential property for broader sections of the population. In Lower Saxony, many such inheritance rights will be available for renewal in the next 20 years, which the current situation became a particularly important power, since in 2023 the fewest real estate has been sold for 35 years and a historical low was recorded in the allocation of building land in 2024.

For more information about the background of the increase in the inheritance interest in Hannover-Kirchrode, you can report the reporting of ndr and the explanations of the Conduct Hannovers .