“Personal use”: landlord gives notice to mother with disabled daughter to sell the house for more
FOCUS first reported this case: a landlady wanted to force a divorced mother of three out of her home right after Christmas – because “vacant” properties sell for more on the property market. CONNY has now had the termination defeated. Before that, though, the landlady tried a really dirty trick – she took the mother's original tenancy agreement.
Ms Schulte* had moved from Hamburg to Schneverdingen only a few months earlier to live with her partner and had no idea what was coming. At the time, it looked like a dream come true. Both her sons found apprenticeships right in the neighbourhood. Her six-year-old daughter got a nursery place. That is not something to take for granted: the daughter was born prematurely. Complications after the birth mean she still has learning difficulties today. Ms Schulte even had to give up her job, because with care level 2 (Pflegegrad 2) her daughter needs intensive care – around the clock. When a nursery in the next village offered the daughter an integration place, the relief was enormous.
Then the shock: the mother receives a letter by registered post. It tells her to leave the house. The proposed handover date is 30 December, just after Christmas.
"Under §573 Abs. 1 BGB (German Civil Code) I must show a legitimate interest for terminating the tenancy: termination for personal use, as (...) the house is to be put up for sale. The tenancy therefore ends on 31. 12. 2018. (...) I propose 30. 12. 2019 as the handover date. (...) If the property is not handed over on time, I will be forced to file for eviction."
“At first we accepted the notice. It sounded as if lawyers had written the letter. And they threatened us straight away with court and eviction. We didn't want to risk that, so we started looking for a new home,” says Ms Schulte.
The mother looked for flats nearby, because she did not want to put the children through yet another fresh start. Anywhere else, she would not have found a nursery place and apprenticeships for her children so quickly either.
“Every day we were on the phone and viewing flats. Nothing worked out. We could already see ourselves out on the street after Christmas. It was pure horror. We didn't want to go through the whole circus any more and even thought about emigrating,” Ms Schulte recalls.
How Ms Schulte found CONNY
The relationship between Ms Schulte and her landlady, who lived right next door, was understandably ruined: “We were at war. We didn't even look at each other any more.”
Because the search was so hopeless, the mother started searching online for whether there was anything she could do against the landlady after all: “A friend of mine had been through something similar. She said that with children they couldn't throw me out. I googled what you can do about a termination and quickly ended up on your website.”
At first the mother was sceptical and called customer service three times in three days: “They explained to me that a termination for personal use is invalid if it is done in order to sell.” Personal use can only be claimed if the owner or a relative is going to move into the property themselves – not because the owner wants to sell it for a higher price. A vacant property quickly fetches twenty to thirty per cent more on the property market.
Picture: Ms Schulte with her son
After the lawyer brought in by CONNY rejected the termination in writing, the landlady tried to strip the mother of her rights by underhand means
“One day she was standing at my door claiming she had never had a copy of the tenancy agreement with my signature. So I fetched my copy, took a photo of it with my phone and gave her the contract to photocopy. She was supposed to give the document back to me afterwards.”
But that never happened. Instead, the mother now had to fear that she could no longer produce an original document if the case went to court: “It was an unimaginative pretext to take the original contract off me. I should never have given her the tenancy agreement. She never intended to give it back,” says Ms Schulte.
Then the surprising turn
In two separate letters, the landlady complied with the demand of the wenigermiete.de lawyer and withdrew the termination. “That saved Christmas,” says Ms Schulte.