According to § 535 BGB, the landlord is obliged to leave and maintain the rental property in a contractually agreed condition. If he does not fulfill this obligation, the tenant is entitled to various rights under the law. In principle, it is possible to sue the landlord to have the defects rectified and thus repair the rental property. However, he can (additionally) also reduce the rent by an appropriate amount (rent reduction, § 536 BGB) and/or make use of his right of retention against the rent claim.
Defects and rent reduction
Since the landlord may even threaten to terminate the contract if the rent is reduced without justification, unauthorized rent reductions are strongly discouraged. Report the defects to the landlord and, if the landlord does not respond, contact a lawyer experienced in rental matters.
Die Mietminderung, die bei Auftreten von Mängel der Mietsache gesetzlich ensteht und entgegen weit verbreiteter Meinung nicht erst durch das Geltendmachen des Mieters, hat folgende Voraussetzungen:
- The presence of significant defects
- were not caused culpably by the tenant and
- the tenant did not know or should have known when signing the contract (without reserving a right to a reduction)
Abschluss
In contrast to the past, an initially unconditional payment of rent is now generally harmless and a contractual exclusion of rent reduction is ineffective.
The amount of the rent reduction depends on the intensity of the impairment of use of the rental property. The reduction is measured based on the gross rent. With regard to the amount of the reduction in individual cases, there are a wealth of court rulings that offer indications of the percentage reduction. However, since the results of the decisions differ significantly from state to state and from city to city, guideline values are deliberately omitted here. We strongly advise against making your own determination based on lists circulating on the Internet. Please consult your lawyer about this question as well.
Responsible for the content of the page Attorney Tenancy Law Hamburg Berlin Defects and rent reduction: Attorney Stephan Steinwachs (Attorney Hamburg Berlin)