Rent reductions when the apartment has a problem

Hi all,

My wife and I are renting a house in Fasanerie. It has a flat roof which is leaking. We now have mould and dampness in the ceilings in one bedroom and paint pealing off in the bathroom. The problem has been ongoing for about 6 months with real solution found.

Can anybody tell me if I have the right to demand a rent reduction? If so how much should it be?

Anybody know a good solitictor that handles rent problem?

Regards

Nigel T

Join the Mieterverein (about € 60 a year) and they will give you free legal advice on housing issues and although they will not write full letters on your behalf they will help you compose your own letters. They also campaign on housing issues in Munich.

They have day time and evening advice sessions all over the city.

It sounds like you DO have grounds to reduce your rent. AFAICR, they way you have to do it is say to your landlord you are continuing to pay the FULL rent under protest as X needs to be done and if it isn't done within X ammount of time you can then withold the monies.

Thanks..

Do you know how I can contact this group?

Regards

Nigel T

Legally you can ask for the reduction, but it is true that is always better to go through someone else. I would call my landlord first to see what he thinks about that and how can you solve that problem. Because mould is not a nice and healthy thing to have at home, and he should get someone to paint that and to find the leak in the roof...

The rent reduction won´t solve the problem you have

do EVERYTHING in writing. Telepfone calls mean shit all.

like Grtho said:

write to them about you complaint and detail it exactly, maybe with photos. Give a "Frist" by which time the work should be done (has to be reasonable) and state how much you will reduce the rent by if the work is not done (there are guidleines somewehere on ho wmuch reduction is applicable for what complaint). If it looks like nothing is happening shortly before your "Frist" runs out, write again re-stating your "Frist". After the "Frist" runs out , you are free to redce the rent. You must also be reasonable about increasing the rent, if they make a decent effort to solve the problem.

Most important is do it in writing!

I hope you nitified your landlord IN WRITING 6 MONTHS AGO, otherwise you may have a problem...

Remember, if it ain't on paper, it didn't happen.. (Leagally)

So it happened several months ago in summer, and now, in december, during the winter you decide to do something about it?

If you didn't inform your landlord right when it first appeared then HE is the one who deserves compensation.

That's something that was hopefully done 6 months ago! In case it was then start reducing the rent by 30% starting next month. If you didn't report it, well, I hope you have good liability insurance.


Painting it over will not solve the problem. The insulation on the roof needs to be removed and most likely thrown out. Since the water might get in at another location that means the whole flat roof needs to be exposed. All the walls and ceilings need to be dried out thoroughly. Hopefully it's all bricks and concrete, otherwise the building materials have to be replaced. Then everything has to be treated with fungicides so the shit will not come back. Once everything has dried out completely the insulation and roofing can be put back in place. Good luck, it's december...
Depending on how bad it is the only choice you might have is to move out immediately.

The Mieterverein is on Sonnerstrasse 10, right in the middle of town at Stachus.
Here's their website - this link is one of their FAQs and directly answers the question you were asking (i.e. it's no longer true that you have to do something within 6 months, but you would be best off getting a bit of a move on).
I would just go down there and ask them what your next steps should be. They're trained lawyers and they know what they're on about.