Competence for housing benefit in Frankfurt am Main

Housing benefit is a benefit of the local housing-benefit authority. In Frankfurt am Main the Housing Office (Amt für Wohnungswesen) performs this task. It examines applications for rented flats and for owner-occupied property, issues decision notices and handles changes during the award period.

There are no district housing-benefit offices in Sachsenhausen, Höchst or at Riedberg. Whether city centre or outer district: the same authority is responsible. A guide by area, without claiming separate offices, is under Districts.

The authority at the place of the dwelling for which you apply for housing benefit is responsible. Anyone who moves to Frankfurt from Offenbach, Darmstadt or another city applies in Frankfurt – even if the last decision notice was issued elsewhere. Conversely, Frankfurt competence ends as soon as the dwelling lies outside the city.

Registered address and actual residence should match. What matters is the living space occupied. Details of a change of dwelling are under Moving home. An application “in reserve” at the old authority for a Frankfurt dwelling not yet occupied regularly goes nowhere.

Address written applications and documents to the Housing Office (Amt für Wohnungswesen), Adickesallee 67–69, 60322 Frankfurt am Main. The service telephone 069 212-47100 serves general information; it replaces neither the application nor the complete evidence.

A personal visit is usually only provided for by appointment. Do not plan a journey in the expectation of an open drop-in hour. You can submit copies of the documents with the application; keep originals ready if they are requested.

The office examines the eligibility rules under the Housing Benefit Act: household members, income, assets in the statutory framework, countable rent or housing burden and exclusion through priority transfer benefits. It does not set the rent and does not decide on the effectiveness of a rent increase under the Civil Code.

Neighbours, local advisory boards or citizens’ offices in the districts are not a housing-benefit authority. The Frankfurt-Pass and Hessenpass mobil are separate procedures; they often presuppose a housing-benefit decision notice but do not replace it. See Frankfurt-Pass.

Decisions are issued as a decision notice. It states the amount, the award period, duties to notify and the information on legal remedies. Address changes – a move, income, household – to the same authority as long as the dwelling lies in Frankfurt.

Against a refusal or an amount you consider wrong, an appeal is to be addressed to the office that issued the decision notice. The deadline is on the notice. A change of authority only for the appeal is not possible.

Dwellings in neighbouring municipalities – for example Offenbach, Neu-Isenburg, Bad Homburg or Eschborn – do not fall into Frankfurt competence, even if you work in Frankfurt. The rent level can be different there.

For a subtenancy the living space you use in Frankfurt counts. A second home usually does not create a housing-benefit claim if the centre of life lies elsewhere. Describe unclear cases in the application with the actual use; the authority decides from the documents.