Published by Seminar on the rental cover on February 17.02.2020, XNUMX
Part 1 - Direct Debits
Part 2 - “Accepting” rent payments
Part 3 - Everything not so hot because it's unconstitutional anyway?
Part 4 - Is only the landlord or the administrator liable?
Part 5 - Conclusion of new leases
Part 6 - Obligation to notify of key date rent immediately after entry into force without a period
Part 7 - Obligation to provide information about the circumstances of the calculation immediately after entry into force without a period
Part 8 - General information and submission obligation to the authorities immediately after entry into force without a period
Part 9 - Obligation to provide information about the circumstances of the calculation within 2 months of the entry into force
Part 10 - Notification of modernization prior to entry into force within 3 months after entry into force
Part 11 - What Happens After the Law Expires?
Part 12 - Rents cut in 9 months
Part 13 - What is a "Request" with fines?
Duty to provide information for new contracts and to SenVerw
Section 6 (4) sentence 2 MietWoG (here Page 17) obliges landlords to provide new tenants with unsolicited information about the circumstances relevant to the calculation of the upper rent limit. According to sentence 3, the same applies to the responsible senate administration if this requests it.
This obligation to provide information applies from the entry into force of the law without a transition period.
The circumstances relevant to the calculation of the rent limit
can be found at various points in the law and initially depend on whether it is a new contract or an existing tenancy. The latter is initially only relevant when SenVerw requests information, not yet to the tenants. I cover the details in part 9 of this series.
At a new contract from entry into force determines § 4 (here Page 14) that one of two upper limits is decisive, depending on which is lower: either the cut-off date rent from June 18.06.2019, 3 according to § 6, or the rent table according to § 7, possibly taking into account § XNUMX. The information therefore includes all of these criteria:
- that there is no circumstance according to which the law according to § 1 is not applicable,
- the balance sheet rent
- first-time occupancy of the apartment
- Equipment of the apartment with collective heating and bathroom
- whether it is a one- or two-family house or not (§ 6 Abs. 2 MietWoG)
- whether and if so which "modern equipment" according to § 6 Abs. 3 MietWoG is available,
- whether and if so which modernization was implemented after the law came into force in accordance with § 7
- whether there is an exemption according to § 8 and if so, with what content
Not matter play the residential area according to § 5, modernization levies before the entry into force, the pre-rent, whether it is a first letting after a fundamental renovation, the rent index or other civil law.
Don't tell me you have to pay the rent permitted under the MietWoG, but only the calculation circumstances. The tenant can then do the calculations himself.
fine reinforcement
Section 11 (1) no. 3 MietWoG defines it as improper if the landlord does not provide the information under Section 6 (4) correctly or incompletely.
Not completely would be, for example, if you do not tell the tenant of a house with 20 parties that it is a building with more than two apartments.
Not right would be, for example, if you specify a modern equipment criterion that does not exist. These criteria are in accordance with Section 6 (3) MietWoG
- Passenger elevator accessible from the apartment and the entrance without thresholds,
- Equipped kitchen,
- high quality sanitary equipment,
- high quality flooring in the majority of living spaces,
- Energy consumption value of less than 120 kWh / (m2 a).
It may be a matter of opinion whether the sanitary equipment or the flooring is of high quality. We cannot fall back on the judgments on the rent index criteria here, because they are worded differently and are in a different context of a multitude of features that result in a balanced overall picture. This is not the case with the five purely housing-related criteria of Section 6 (3) of the Rent Act. The risk that your view as a landlord is wrong is borne by you.
However, you cannot avoid an assessment of this risk: the law forces you to explain whether or not the criteria are present. So not only do you have to name them if the criteria are there, you also have to tell them that they are not if they don't. Because without this information you have not provided information about all the circumstances that are relevant for the calculation.
The same applies to paragraph 5. The energyconsumptionSkennwert is determined by user behavior, an energyrequirementskennwert is not interested in the law. If the previous tenant had a different energy consumption than your new tenant, the value changes and your information is incorrect. The same applies if other tenants in the house change their user behavior and therefore the total energy consumption of the house changes. This happens every year, depending on the weather. Fortunately, you only have to say whether the energy consumption value is below or above and do not state the exact value. It is therefore only critical if it is close to the threshold of 120 kWh / m2a and can therefore fluctuate above or below. I think that you cannot be blamed for communicating the value from the currently valid energy certificate, provided that it is a consumption certificate, not a demand certificate.
Form of information
A certain form is not mandatory, You can give them in writing or by email, but also in person before signing the lease. It is important that you can prove that you have provided the information a) before the conclusion of the contract b) and keep the evidence in such a way that it is still available after several years if required.
What not possible is is a Notice board in the house, Because the criteria for a permissible rent for new leases are different from those for existing tenancies. You must also be able to demonstrate that the addressee of the obligation to provide information, the new tenant, received the information before the contract was concluded. After all, information about a house notice would only be possible if all apartments are equipped identically, i.e. not in one built-in kitchen and not in another, or if there are different floors. I do not want to judge whether it is a data breach if you use a notice to inform all tenants that all of their apartments are equipped identically. The GDPR only affects personal data, but it's not my area of expertise, so you'd better ask another colleague.
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