Tenancy Law

Berlin prepares for the winter

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Status of the rent increase processes

I have not written much in the blog lately. This is because last week Saturday, the 30.11., Ran the ruling period for the rental increases from June. Me and my colleague Benjamin have never filed so many rent-increasing lawsuits as they have in the last month and a half. One week before the deadline, we had to stop accepting new mandates because otherwise we would not have been able to ensure that everything could be processed on time.

Also in the offices of the colleagues, which one knows so well, it was in the last weeks strangely quiet. There was little correspondence in other matters to us, everyone was busy coping with the lawsuit. I've been around a bit and all report the same: the enormous flood of Mieterhöhungsprozessen with deadline weighed down my industry so much that there was little time for something else left.

Yesterday I had a short chat with my colleague from the tenants' association and the judge on the sidelines of a court hearing at the Berlin-Schöneberg district court. The judge had a list of the entries in her department from the last 4 weeks, it was long. She said it was completely unclear how all of this should be done. In the incoming registry, you can hardly keep up with assigning the file number, not to mention entering the data of those involved in the process. I can confirm: the fax numbers of the local courts were partially occupied for a long time, which leads me to assume with regard to everything else that the complaints were received every minute.

From the District Court Berlin-Neukölln we received this week the first written statement on Mietendeckel. It has scheduled a hearing at the end of February at the hearing, but at the same time informed that the short-term could be repealed, depending on the state of the legislative procedure for rent cover in the Senate. Then the court would suspend the proceedings. This means two things: on the one hand, the judge in question does not think about applying the Mietendeckelgesetz, but he wants to put the file away until it has decided on constitutional conformity. Second, a court can not simply refuse to work. A suspension is only possible if another method is anticipated. The judge counts thus with an immediate norm control complaint after decree, otherwise he would have to carry out the procedure namely (and possibly even submit to the BVerfG).

Why are so many complaints necessary? On the one hand, this is due to the mass of rent increases carried out in June: if 150.000 increases in Berlin only 10% of tenants disagree, are the 15.000 procedure. On the other hand, many tenants either did not react at all with regard to the rental cover or agreed "with reservations". Both forces the landlord to bring an action before the statutory period of legal action. Content objections of tenants are - at least in my department - rather rare: the Mietspiegeleinwertung is usually undisputed.

Status of the wave of termination

Parallel to the rent increases, the willingness of landlords to accept arrears or unpunctual payments has diminished massively. Anyone who can cancel announces. Brokers tell me that rented apartments in Berlin are currently more or less unsalable. If you want to get out of the market, you must empty the unit beforehand.

Another focus of my work are currently self-terminations. Ultimately, this is also based on the Mietendeckel: on the one hand, many owners want to use their apartment in the future rather than rent them. On the other hand, they can not find rental apartments on the market that they could switch to. So far, long-term tenancies have been allowed to run rather and rented an apartment for the daughter or son if necessary, if he / she study here or come back to the city after studying or just wanted to move out at home. This is no longer possible, because the willingness of other owners to rent out exists only with those who are forced to do so, and because there is hardly any vacancy, because no one moves out anymore, when he does not have to. So you have to make the apartments empty from your own stock, if you need one. Sometimes this leads to a termination cascade, namely if the tenants themselves a rented condominium belongs (pension).

The deadline for self-employment termination with the inclusion of the month of December in the period of notice expired yesterday (3. So I hope that the last two weeks before Christmas will be quieter in this regard. Of course, we still have enough other things to do in the files that had to wait temporarily because the aforementioned deadlines have been pushed forward.

We have an interesting year behind us and a possibly even more exciting New Year ahead of us. The commercial real estate market is also moving, but I'll report on that later.

Invest at the apartment level

For the construction of assets and passive income from real estate, especially one or more condominiums, I have written an ebook, you can find the link to Amazon here , If you prefer to keep it printed in your hand, you will find it here .

Who under the new rules no longer rent, but wants to use, can cancel due to personal needs.

If you want to read about the topic of self-employment termination, you will find related blog articles under the following links. Of course you can also just commission me, then I will do everything for you as your lawyer.