Cancellation fees for a holiday apartment rental

it was for June. There is no point in asking her now...

There is a contract!

The bloke said he booked the place.. via Email..

Its funny how a Shark lawyer wont go to another shark wanker lawyer and pay for him to lie on his behalf!

"Its funny how a Shark lawyer wont go to another shark wanker lawyer and pay for him to lie on his behalf!"

nice comments. I notice there's a discussion elsewhere on the forum about how unutterably rude germans can be as work colleagues. been living there too long?

as I said, I've consulted a German colleague on the matter. and of course you're jumping to the conclusion I haven't paid the colleague or don't expect to pay them in the future. although, yes, I'm happy to admit they have offered "mates' rates"

Sorry if I am missing the obvious here, but what does it mean to "book" a holiday rental if (as the subtitle indicates) there never was a contract? What documentation exists? Emails?

Two sources in German on this:
Die Zeit: Absagen kann teuer werden (Canceling may come expensive)
DEHOGA (German Hotel and Restaurant Association) on this

The law does not require a written contract. The German law does this only for very few types of contracts.
There are also no requirements on the form or content. If issues like "canceling" are not addressed the law applies. If dealing with private customers you can anyway add only conditions in favor of the customer compared to the law. Most small hotels, pensions and vacations apartments don't have thus own booking conditions. Or use the ones provided by DEHOGA, which are merely an explanation of the law.

Booking a hotel room or vacation apartment is treated under German law like renting a flat for living. The German Civil Code (BGB) applies.
This is in most countries different, but I think in Italy it's the same.

The rental contract is for both sides binding.

The rental contract cannot be canceled!

This does however not apply if the contract/booking conditions say something different. But otherwise better read the above sentence again.
An example: you rent a flat but the landlord dies before the first day of the rental. The rental contract stays valid. The heirs have to give you the flat. A rental contract becomes not void even due the death of one side!
By law rentals for a limited period of time cannot be canceled at all. Rentals for an unlimited period of time can be canceled after a certain period of time (here the law foresees different periods for tenants and landlords).
Thus: you cannot cancel. This means you still have to fulfill the contract, i.e. paying for the rental. The money you have to pay is thus no canceling fee or compensation. You have to fulfill the contract. That's the key point in the whole thing.

For things the landlord saves actually if you don't turn up (e.g. water, cleaning, breakfast) you don't have to pay however.
There are generally agreed on rates for this. Basically you are free to proof something different before court, but this really difficult.
- overnight stay in a vacation apartment: 10%
- overnight stay with breakfast: 20%
etc.

Thus from this point of view you had even luck that the owner asked "only" for 80% if your stay was without breakfast.

Now to other paragraphs of the BGB:
a) the owner is still obliged to try to find a new customer for the apartment
b) if he is successful on this you don't have to pay at all. If he is partly successful you also have to pay only partly.

These are points difficult to proof by the customer. With a vacation apartment you can ask someone else to check if it is free for the same period of time (or part of it). If it isn't you have won. With hotels this is even more difficult as you basically can only check if a hotel is completely booked or not. With average occupancy rates in Germany of 35-40% the chances are however not that good.

Under German law the customer does not have to prove that the landlord did not suffer damages, that would be a reversal of the burden of proof (Beweislastumkehr). The landlord has the burden of proof in court. OP can sit back on his haunches in court and dispute the claim, the landlord must bring evidence that he undertook "every reasonable attempt" (jede zumutbare Anstrengung) to re-rent the property. If these attempts were successful OP may be liable for any extra costs accrued for advertising and postage but not for any cancellation fee which is meant as compensation for the property being unoccupied during the agreed period.

ok, some mixed messages, but I appreciate the overall help. thanks.

Something similar is happening to me: I confirmed a hotel booking. I got an email on the total cost of which 50% has to be paid beforehand. However, I did not make the payment and by this non-payment, I assume that the booking will no longer hold. Anyhow, when we decided against going, I wrote them to cancel. That was 10 days ago.

I just received a call from them today - the day we were supposed to arrive - asking at what time I'm arriving. What?? But we have already cancelled. She said she didn't receive the cancellation. Her colleague will call me tomorrow.

Do they have the right to charge me? What is "behalten wir uns die Weitergabe des reservierten Zimmers vor"?

Here is their clause:

Sollte die Anzahlung nicht fristgemäß eingehen, behalten wir uns die Weitergabe des reservierten Zimmers vor. Bei Stornierung nach
erfolgter Anzahlung erstatten wir Ihnen den zu viel gezahlten Betrag selbstverständlich zurück.

Stornierung
bis 14 Tage vor Anreise kostenfrei
14 - 07 Tage vor Anreise 25% der Leistungssumme
07 - 03 Tage vor Anreise 50% der Leistungssumme
ab 3 Tage vor Anreise 75% der Leistungssumme

As long as you have cancelled 14 days before you were due to arrive then you clearly have no problem.

So if you had turned up at the property and she turned around and said "Ooops Sorry, I've changed my mind, you can't have it, terribly sorry for the inconvenience..." you would have accepted that?