Renting an apartment and buying the fitted kitchen

Hi Toytowners,

I am renting an apartment but i need to buy the kitchen. The kitchen is an EBK (Ein Bau Kuche). Its got 4 heating plates with a fridge and an oven.
The problem is that i may have to to dismantle the kitchen later and sell it off. I would like to know how easy it is to dismantle the kitchen yourself and how easy its to sell it off or may be dispose it.
I would appreciate if some of you can share your experiences. I have to make this decision of renting this apartment very soon. Please help!!!

Cheers

who do have to buy the kitchen from?

I assume its an Ablöse from the previous owners...

Actually the previous tenant had installed the kitchen, it doesnt belong to the house owner.

I havent seen any apartment where they selll the kitchen. Is it normal practice in Munich to sell the kitchen to the next guy who is moving in.

I had to buy and install a kitchen when I moved into my current flat, so I just went through the process. Most tenants own the kitchens here, even the built in ones, and occasionally they don't want to bring it along when they move out. Then the owner puts a condition on renting that you must buy the previous tenant's kitchen.

Since moving around kitchens is standard procedure around here, all are designed to be modular and portable, unless you have a fairly expensive unit that was custom built into the room. All of the cupboard units should be separable, and can usually be dismantled with a screwdriver. The only difficult piece is the counter top, but that is usually replaced by the new buyer since your kitchen layout might not match his. One person might be able to dismantle the kitchen alone, but having a friend to help is much easier, and you could do it in a couple of hours. Building back again is more work, but not outrageous.

I found eBay was about the best place to buy a new kitchen. There are lots of ads in local buy and sell newspapers too, but I didn't like the idea of buying without seeing pictures first, and I didn't have time to visit every kitchen I wanted to see. Kitchens generally fetch a fair price on eBay. I followed a lot of auctions before buying, and I didn't see any outrageously low or high prices. You can look at some of the past auctions to get an idea of prices; there's a search option to view only complete auctions.

It is usually the buyer's responsibility to transport the new kitchen, though some sellers offer to move it for a price. When I bought mine, I drove with a friend in his LKW to pick it up, and the seller dismantled it while we were loading it. We then spent a Saturday buying a new countertop and fittings, and installing it.

So in short, buying/selling/moving a kitchen is a bit of a pain, but not a big deal.

It can be normal practice, yes. In this case the norm would be for you to sell it on to the next tenant. There's always the chance that it won't be wanted though of course. That makes me wonder whether or not you have that option actually.

Thanks Martin for your valuable feedback. I think i will go for the kitchen as it doesnt cost too much and may be try to sell it off to the next guy at a lesser price. Hope i dont have to get to the stage of dismantling the kitchen and selling of on ebay.