Your Own Wohngeld Case and a Country Pilot

By the end you will have built and checked a second household’s case and drafted a pilot brief for a benefit in your own country.

1. The household

Rechenbeispiel 2 of the BMWSB brochure as of 1 January 2025: a single man in Ludwigshafen am Rhein receives unemployment benefit (Arbeitslosengeld, ALG I) of €1,350 a month and rents a flat for €470 a month without heating.

The ministry’s example gives Y = €1,350.00, M = €580.40 and a Wohngeld of €88. The canon’s 2025 suite reproduces all three.

2. Your submission

Work through five steps. For each, write your prediction first, then the provision, then the answer you obtained.

1. The rent level. Which rent level does the WoGV assign to Ludwigshafen am Rhein, and which ceiling plus climate component follows for one member in 2025?
2. The income. ALG I is a wage-replacement benefit under § 14 Abs. 2 Nr. 6 WoGG with § 32b Abs. 1 S. 1 Nr. 1 Buchst. a EStG. Why does the example deduct no flat-rate work expenses, and which § 16 deductions apply?
3. The rent taken into account. Compute M.
4. The claim. What must the case contain, besides the facts above, for the claim to €88 to be established rather than requiring judgment?
5. The boundary. Change one fact so that the model returns each of: not established; a ground of exclusion; the flag outside the model. Name the fact and the provision each time.

3. Worked solution

1. The WoGV lists Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Stadt at Mietenstufe IV. For one member in 2025, Anlage 1 gives a ceiling of €511, and § 12 Abs. 7 a climate component of €19.20: €530.20 in all.
2. ALG I is not income from employment, so the employee’s flat rate of § 9a EStG does not apply; the ministry notes “kein Arbeitnehmer-Pauschbetrag”. The example assumes that no § 16 deductions apply, so Y = €1,350.00.
3. The rent of €470 is below €530.20, so all of it counts; plus heating relief for one member (§ 12 Abs. 6), €110.40: M = €580.40.
4. The Wohngeldbehörde’s assessment under § 21 Nr. 3, recorded as adjudicated, that claiming would not be abusive. Without it the amount is established and the claim requires judgment (Chapter 6). Beside it, the case must state the § 20 fact — that he is not eligible in principle for training support (bafoeg in the Vogts’ case) — and the other premises the Vogts’ case already holds; without the § 20 fact the claim does not follow.
5. Examples:
   • not established: remove the place of residence — no rent level, no ceiling, no amount (Chapter 8);
   • exclusion: enter that he receives SGB II support with housing costs — § 7 Abs. 1 S. 1 Nr. 1 excludes him, § 21 Nr. 2 denies the claim (Chapter 7);
   • outside the model: make the application a Lastenzuschuss — the flag names the reason (Chapter 8).

4. What this gives the authority

Two households now run through the same model: a family of four in Weimar and a single man in Ludwigshafen. Different rent levels, different kinds of income, the same sections, the same kinds of answer. That is the point of an executable model for a Wohngeldbehörde: the next file is not a new calculation by hand but a new set of facts.

5. Where Catala stands on this

Catala’s founders showed that a statute can be written as code beside its own text, and that doing so finds real discrepancies. This exercise builds on that idea and adds what an office needs around the number: the edition of the date, the authority’s open questions, exclusions resting on other decisions, and answers that can be replayed.

6. Country-pilot brief

Draft one page for a benefit in your own country, using the German case as the pattern:

Acceptance checklist

• Every number in the brief comes from an official example or a run of the model, with its date.
• Every question the text leaves to an authority is named, with the authority.
• The last legal date covered by the model is stated, and what the model returns after it.
• What stays outside the model is listed as outside the model, not as “not entitled”.
• The legal basis for reusing the texts is checked.