Rent increase successfully rejected: Hamburg tenant saves over €100 a month
The residents of a period building in Hamburg receive a rent increase of 14.99%, even though the rent was already above the local comparative rent. Florian K. (name changed) was not prepared to accept this and wanted to fight his rent increase of €105.94. The landlord took his objection as a personal attack, and Florian decided to seek professional help – he turned to CONNY. We talk to him about how the rent increase was successfully rejected and how his neighbours responded.
Even before the rent increase, you weren't exactly happy with the situation in the building. Why?
Florian: "The building belongs to a community of heirs. My impression is that they're chronically short of money but try to squeeze everything they can out of the building. On the one hand, they let the place fall into disrepair. The cellars are mouldy and have been locked off. An electrician told me the wiring is all over the place and barely meets safety standards. The windows are draughty. The taps drip. On the other hand, they're skimming off as much as they can. The new neighbours pay almost twice my rent per square metre. And then came this rent increase of 14.99 percent..."
Landlords may raise the rent by up to 15% within three years, provided the new rent is in line with the rent index (Mietspiegel). What made you think the rent increase was unlawful anyway?
Florian: "I just couldn't imagine that the rent increase was justified. Even though the letter referred to the legislation…"
All landlords like to do that – quoting sections of the German Civil Code (BGB). It intimidates tenants. They're meant to think the landlord knows better what he's doing….
Florian: "Yes. So I did my research. I downloaded the rent index from the City of Hamburg's website and checked where my rent stood. And it looked as though my rent was already above the permitted maximum before the increase. So first of all I wrote a letter myself, reported all the defects and asked them to make me a new offer."
And what was the response?
Florian: "An emotional letter in which the head of the property management company complained about the rumour mill in the building. But the most outrageous part was the claim that it was legal to charge 20 percent more rent than the maximum value in the rent index – without citing a single law to back it up..."
Excerpt from the reply sent to Florian K.:
"A rent of up to 20% above the maximum value is lawful." "We would be grateful if you (...) would assess our working relationship honestly and please not lump us in with the "Hamburg rent scaremongers"."
Falsely claiming on the one hand that 20 percent above the rent index is lawful, and on the other objecting to being called a rent shark…
Florian: "Yes, quite something. That's when I knew I wasn't going to get any further on my own. I had already heard about wenigermiete.de in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, and then looked into customer reviews and media articles to find out whether you were trustworthy. I liked that I could describe the situation and simply upload the documents. And that the review of the rent increase itself doesn't cost anything to begin with. If you had found that the demand was in order, I could still have accepted it without having to pay anything."
Why didn't you go through a tenants' association?
Florian: "I've never been a member of one. And I'm not really the type for “insurance”, where you pay something every month without knowing whether you'll ever need it."
So how did fighting the rent increase go?
Florian: "Fairly straightforward – you sent the letter rejecting the increase to the landlord. He then had two months to file a lawsuit to compel me to consent to the rent increase. As he didn't do that, the rent increase was off the table after about four months."
Florian K. and many other tenants in this building on Wohlwillstraße received a rent increase.
Is there anything we could have done better?
Florian: "Signing up was very straightforward. But I would have liked to be kept a little better informed about the status of things. Especially about when and what was communicated to the landlord…."
Thank you, we'll work on keeping our customers better informed about the status of their cases. How did your neighbours in the building fight the rent increases, and were they successful?
Florian: "Some tenants successfully fought off the demands through the tenants' association. Others, who have lived there much longer and paid less rent than I do, accepted the rent increase. And the new arrivals, who pay almost 20 euros per square metre, didn't receive a rent increase at all."
The rental market is already highly regulated (rent control, caps on rent increases, etc.). Is that enough to protect your neighbourhood from exploding rents and gentrification?
Florian: "The current trend is definitely worrying. Here in my neighbourhood, freelance journalists, photographers, artists and musicians still live alongside the Porsche drivers who park their cars in the underground garage. But if rents keep rising, a lot of ways of life here will simply no longer be viable. That has to stop. Why don't we do it like Denmark? There, foreign investors or private individuals living abroad aren't allowed to buy residential property. Not like here, where large real estate fund companies leave many buildings empty because they can offset the losses internally."