Published by Uncertainty on social media
On Twitter and Facebook, currently unsettled discussions are being conducted by tenants who are wondering whether the rental cover also applies to their subleases, shared apartments or AirBNB.
The answer is very simple: yes, of course it applies. That follows Section 1 of the MietWoG (here page 11), It regulates that the MietWoG applies to living space, with five exceptions. Subletting is not mentioned there and is therefore no exception.
That is also very clear. Otherwise the law would simply be undermined. The owner would only have to "rent" his apartment to, for example, his brother and he could then "sublet" it, and you would be out of the problem. Of course that cannot be.
Bypass arrangements in shared apartments
Because that makes sense, there is a discussion on Twitter as to whether you can get out of the problem with certain rental contracts, for example by renting WiFi or furniture. The answer to this can be found in section 3 (5) of the Renting Act (see link above on page 14): rent in the sense of the law is Net rent including all surcharges, i.e. WiFi surcharge as well as fridge sharing or furnishing, sublease or partial trade surcharge.
Duty to provide information for flat share owners?
The sub-lessors must fully comply with the information requirements specified in the MietWoG and must meet the sub-tenants within the specified deadlines, and compliance must be documented. The obligations to cooperate with the authorities also apply without restriction. The subletting tenant is just a “landlord”, so everything applies to him and his main landlord.
fines threat
The penalty of up to EUR 11 provided for in Section 500.000 of the Rent Act also applies to the sub-lessor.
Now you might think that the flat-mates do not black-talk to each other, so there is little risk that something will happen here, and you can simply continue secretly or in cash as before. But that shouldn't be harmless. On the one hand, everyone involved has (at least) conditional intent. On the other hand, someone else can also inform the office, such as the apartment owner or neighbors, who have always been upset that parties are celebrating in the flat share or that it is otherwise noisy or the residents are constantly changing etc. Furthermore, we do not experience it at all It is rare that individual residents of shared apartments do not go peacefully, but want to fight and then take revenge. They all know internals, of course: who lived in which room from when to when, how much rent is paid, etc. They also have rent receipts for the sublease, because few people correctly agree to pay without a receipt. In the past, such internals were spread out to the owner in the hope that he would cause problems for the main tenant. The tax office is also often involved if it can be assumed that the tenant is not taxing his sublease income correctly. In the future, the district office should be the first point of contact due to a violation of the MietWoG.
According to Section 2 (3) MietWoG, the district office has the additional authority to request information from the subletting tenants about the existence and content of the sublease contracts, as well as all the documents that are needed to be able to examine and punish violations. This also includes the account statements, the lease agreements or, if applicable, the WG room advertisement for the rental. Failure to submit or incomplete submission also results in the above-mentioned fine.
So that the rental cover is good for something:
Do you love music? Good music needs good musicians. With the campaign
https://www.gofundme.com/f/flugel-fur-sophie
we collect money for a young pianist so that she can buy an adequate practice device. Unfortunately, this is very expensive. The blog here is free, but you can help get the tool together with a contribution. It is on the above platform or via PayPal here https://paypal.me/pools/campaign/113121080572323558 Thank you.