Dissolving Wohnriester as easily as possible?

Hello everyone,

I have had a Wohnriester contract with Schwäbisch Hall for several years now; the money with allowances flows into a building savings contract. The bank recommended this to me a long time ago when the topic of wanting a house was not very current. The building savings sum has been increased several times in the meantime so that it does not become "full."
My life situation has completely changed in recent years, wife + child etc., so as soon as we find something, we would strike. Along with this, I have also dealt a bit with the topic of financing. I am not sure what to think exactly about the Riester construct. I only recently became aware of the advantages and disadvantages.
When it becomes concrete, meaning if we were to buy a house or a building plot, we would probably need to get advice again regarding financing from my bank, my wife's bank, and probably an intermediary.
Now the thought is bothering me whether I am already very tied to the Riester, in which a significant part of my equity capital is now invested. The interest rate, if I were to use the building savings loan, probably would not be so attractive.
If I then were to decide, for example, for an annuity loan from another bank or something else, could I simply take the money out and dissolve everything? Or would I have to repay the allowances, for example? I even have a second Riester contract aimed at retirement pension, but I only pay the minimum amount to keep it running. Maybe the allowances could be transferred?
By the way, I have also been paying into a "completely normal" building savings contract for many years.

Best regards,
Tobi

1) Who is responsible? Who advises? Deutsche RV Bund, Central Allowance Office, 10868 Berlin; 03381-21222324. 2) What is possible? Riester Classic: dissolving and taking money for owner-occupied IMMO does not affect allowances, permission via address see above. Proofs also to be sent there. Please communicate by phone. Or alternatively, only partially dissolve the Classic, leave 3000 or more and continue saving. Then the tax on the capital is only due upon retirement benefits, otherwise immediately. Riester Bauspar: see above. As a building saver, take as intended with building saver loan or dissolve and use for owner-occupied IMMO. Permission for this see 1) I partially dissolved, withdrew 18,000, left 3,000. Proof of owner occupation was done via registration certificate. Karsten

I had a "normal" Riester and decided to terminate it. Allowances lost, but somehow some money came back from the tax office.

Anything too complex, stay away. The only small Riester we have is my wife's.

Back then, when we were very young, everyone was also talked into a Wohnriester. To be honest, we didn’t understand it at all at that time. When we bought the house, we canceled it for homeownership acquisition and received the money after a few months (everything that was on it including the allowances). Whether the matter is settled with that... no idea. As far as I have read, you can’t get out of it once you have it. But as I said, I still haven’t understood the construct... especially not what it has to do with taxation during retirement. The lady from the bank said everything was settled with the cancellation. Whether that’s true? No idea.

In any case, I can tell you that the payout definitely takes longer than they told us in advance back then. We had talked to the bank (LBS/Sparkasse) ahead of the house purchase. They told us there would be a few weeks of processing time after the cancellation and then it would be paid out. When the time came and we needed the money, it suddenly took several months, I think it was 6 or 7, until the payout. All in all, we didn’t have good experiences with it and I wouldn’t sign up for it again today.

I faced the same question.

If I had included it in the financing, I would have had a housing promotion account of over 90k and would have had to repay 16k. But until the financing was paid off, I would have also received 14k in subsidies and would have been done faster. Due to inflation, it would have been roughly a break-even deal, maybe even a small profit through earlier repayment. I decided against incorporating it for psychological reasons – I simply did not want to start retirement with a 16k repayment. Rationally, though, I probably should have done it.

I had consulted Wüstenrot about what to do with the contract that I would never use. The result was that I would leave it dormant because I did not need the money at that time. The reason is that the credit interest rates are significantly higher than those of the instant access savings account. But the statement was also clear and straightforward that if I cancel, which will eventually happen, I will lose all subsidies and there will be a 6-month period between cancellation and payout.

So, that it was canceled as mentioned above, the subsidies were still paid out, and that the matter was then settled – meaning no housing promotion account was set up with the tax office – does not match the information I received. I don’t know which advisor is right now. But I will know in about 7 months, as I will soon cancel the contract after all... I suspect the subsidies will be gone (it adds up to a nice amount over the years…), anything else would be too good to be true.

Ok, the answers help me. It is not yet clear whether I want to resign or not, there will be further discussions when we want to concretely buy a property. The decision will probably not be that easy. We were once close to a purchase and had something calculated by my bank (Raiffeisen) and my wife's bank (Sparkasse). Raiffeisen is a big fan of Wohnriester and even suggested that my wife should take one out as well. Sparkasse was more cautious and would have initially left it completely aside, continued to save it, financed the house purchase differently at first, and probably used the Bausparer for Riester when the first interest fixation expires.

One more question about taxation: on the advice of my bank, I transferred several larger amounts that had accumulated in the checking account into the Bausparer multiple times. Do I then have to pay taxes on that, meaning the entire balance? In that case, that would not have been very wise, right?