Landlord responsibilities to fix a broken fridge

Hello Everyone

Help and advice required . . .

Our fridge went kaput on Tuesday - everything well on its way to room temperature by the time we got home from work - so electrician was called (by landlord) and came yesterday (Wednesday) to deliver the news that a new fridge was required. Problem is, it's one of those ones fitted into a fitted kitchen, so needs to be specially ordered etc.

Bottom line is that we're w/o fridge, and €150+ worth of chow - currently residing in cool boxes - is about to spoil.

What responsibility does the landlord have vis-a-vis replacing the fridge and within what timeframe? As stated above, the fridge is a built-in model provided by the landlord as part of the infrastructure when we moved in.

Finally - bit of a punt, this one - does anyone think we'll be able to claim for the spoiled food through our home contents insurance?

Many thanks for any and all help/advice.

Kuzzer

No-one?

Kuzzer

It's totally reasonable that a semi-custom refrigerator would take a bit of time to be delivered. You probably can claim the food under insurace but I have no basis for that.

Google mietminderung if you want to see what you potentially could do about the fridge but it actually sounds like you have a decent landlord.

You've no chance the landlord is being reasonable and fulfilling his responsabilities here.Just one of those things you have to accept.Could always look on T.T. though to see if someone is giving a fridge away.

Thanks @kaptn and @mik

So, the new fitted fridge arrives on Friday to be, err, fitted (and, presumably, switched on).

My issue here is that as the original fridge was the responsibility of the Landlords (an integral part of the fitted kitchen provided when we moved in), and that although they are sourcing a replacement within a reasonable timeframe, the fact remains that €150+ of perishable foodstuffs have come to grief. Apologies in advance for being in danger of flogging a dead horse, but if someone could advise us on whether to claim this loss against the Landlords' personal liability insurance or against /our/ home contents insurance, that would be very much appreciated.

We do have a very good relationship with the Landlords (frankly, we have to - they live right next door...) - but what has irked us here is that they made no effort whatsoever to provide a /workable/ temporary arrangement (they did say "we have a little space in our cellar fridge" - but can you imagine having to ring their doorbell every time you wanted to make a cup of tea?!). In the end, we borrowed a fridge from the bar down the road.

Anyway, as ever, any advice much appreciated.

K

Try your own insurance

I wonder what do you want them to do? They replaced the fridge fast enough and they offered you to use their fridge.

PS. Do you put your tea in the fridge?

@krieg: our fridge was full; they had only a small amount of space in /their/ fridge - ipso facto - nowhere to put the vast majority of the perishable foodstuffs. Re. the tea, us British have a strange habit of putting milk in it ...

p.s. if you think that throwing away €150+ is a mere drop in the ocean, then I'd be happy to supply you with my Giro a/c number and /you/ can reimburse me - will save me the bother of an insurance claim

So, what you wanted them to do?

At the risk of repeating myself, and if I understand your comment correctly, what we would have /liked/ them to do is provide a /workable/ temporary solution - not a token "we have room in our fridge for half-a-dozen eggs and an half-eaten jar of sauerkraut".

We have been here just a year, but we managed to borrow a fridge from the bar down the road . . . not exactly rocket science.

K

You're being very unreasonable. A landlord isn't responsible for every possible eventuality. They're responsible for keeping the house and certain contents in good repair, which this guy is. He couldn't know the refrigerator would break and he did his best to accommodate you -- he offered you space in his fridge and ordered a replacement right away.

Refrigerators breaking is part of this thing called life, and it's up to you to react appropriately. They also have coolers and ice at most gas stations.

Somewhere on a German-language forum there's a guy asking if all English speakers are incapable of reacting to a broken refrigerator.

Would you also expect them to provide you with a portable toilet if the pipes in your loo got blocked?

Btw, I think your landlord has been very accommodating in the whole affair. If I were you I'd try to stay on good terms with him. Ask your insurance company (you've got nothing to lose by just asking) whether you can claim anything.

Urghh.

It was never my intention for this thread to descend into a flame war.

The simple fact of the matter is that the space offered in his fridge was completely inadequate, and the solution unworkable (think about how many times you need to visit your fridge on a daily basis - and then equate that with having to ring your landlords' doorbell x times a day to access your milk). And all of that assuming that the Landlord will actually be in at the times you need to access your cow-juice.

All I wanted from my initial post was a bit of friendly TT advice as to (a) the legal position (which no-one has been able to provide), and (b) which route to take for an insurance claim. It seems to me that sometimes people here are too ready to criticise, too reticent to empathise.

>>Would you also expect them to provide you with a portable toilet if the pipes in your loo got blocked?
@Kay: if said blockage was going to take more than 12 hours to rectify, then yes - or are you a fan of shitting on your own carpet?

I think this thread should now come to a timely conclusion, no?

K

Why don't you actually contact your insurance company and ask them if you're covered?

You wanted to hear you can sue the landlord to any end. You didn't hear it.
If you want legal adice ask a lawyer.
What insurance would/should cover your food?
In German lawterms this is called "allgemeines Lebensrisiko" (general risks of life).
No insurance will cover that. No way to get money from anybody.

Thanks for your non-partisan and positive comment. We have been in touch; someone's "calling us back".

K

This isn't a flame war. No one's making baseless claims and calling you out. We're just saying it's unreasonable to expect your landlord to trot out a brand new whatever any time something goes wrong in your apartment.

In fact, we gave you good advice, it just wasn't the advice you wanted to hear.

Also: what in God's name was in your fridge? I can come up with maybe 20 euros worth of stuff in mine that would spoil, and that's assuming we hadn't touched any of what is in there.

Caviare and foie gras is expensive stuff you know!

four of prime ribs steaks, a whole salmon, fois gras and two kilos of Gorau Glas cheese

Well, he offered you space in his fridge because he was being nice to you. But somehow you still bitch about it.

Poor you, can not drink your tea with milk for 3 days, oh my God! A damn liter of milk costs 69 cents, open one every morning and throw the balance when it spoils.

Woo-hoo - we've made it onto a second page!

K

And probably you will make it onto the Pleeeze help me thread.

sorry, I stopped reading after a few posts but when my washing machine broke in my first flat in Frankfurt (a washing machine provided by the landlord) I had a new one delivered and installed 2 days later. I think a fridge would be a higher priority and I would have thought he'd try to get you a cheap stand alone one in the meantime (like my landlord got me plug in heaters when my heating broke in winter). Re the food, try calling your insurance company, they might cover it, or perhaps the landlords insurance as it was his property which 'kind of' damaged yours. Even better, talk to your landlord, ask for his 'advice' re the food, whether he thinks some insurance might cover it (either his or yours) he may just offer to reimburse you if he is a fair type of guy.

There`s no way I could ever get 150 Euro of food in a fridge!

Didn't you say you found a workable solution by using the fridge in the bar down the street?

If you found a workable solution why do you also think you're entitled to compensation?

Bloody Englanders , complain about everything they do...wouldnt see that carry on from the Germans... uh wait...

@Rilana: thanks for your helpful and supportive comment - there is hope in this world.

For the record: it's a large fridge - a "full-size" I believe is the technical term - and for better-or-worse, we buy organic*. With this equation, it doesn't take long to reach €150.


Small, bar-top fridge; enough space for milk, butter, cheese and some OJ. The majority of the food in the coolboxes had gone off by then (we collected the bar fridge on Friday). Anyone else require further details?

K

*I am of course now ducking for cover in anticipation of the inevitable "what a tw@t you are for buying organic it doesn't taste any better and you're not really benefiting the environment blah blah blah and most of it's shipped from Peru which means that any environmental benefit is outweighed by the carbon footprint drone drone"-type comments. We buy locally-sourced organic ...

To be really honest, 150€ isn't that much, especially if your landlord has been reasonable (and frankly, he has been in the timeframe, even offering some space for your items - a coolbox would have done for your milk, by the way), especially if you have the financial capacity to buy such food in the first place and I personally believe that the loss in good will getting any money back would be worth far more than 150€.
Remember who has your deposit, eh?

And if it was tons of meat/fish - why didn't you invite the landlord and your pals around for a barbeque?
That probably would have created a good will profit for way over the 150€...

Organic what?

locally sourced meat can be expensive, but I would prefer to purchase fresh...

Veg do not need to be stored in a fridge.

Probably the remains of a shopping trip to Lidl during Brit week...

Anyway regarding your insurance don't you have a deductible, assuming that you do, it has to be at least 100 euros, so claiming would be a total waste of time!

I actually never shop at the German discounters. I just have two kids so it's hard to keep any of our organic/locally grown food around for very long.