Landlady stalling necessary repairs

The boiler in my bedroom is not working at all. Consequently, I'm freezing when I wake up in the mornings. I called my landlady 10 days ago and asked her to have it fixed. After calling (no answer), emailing, talking to her secretary and daughter all week last week, nothing has been done. I finally get a call Monday saying a guy would be over that afternoon. I was stuck in meetings all day, so I couldn't get home to meet him. I asked if the landlady could let him in, and she said she doesn't have a key. ???

The fact is the heating still doesn't work, I'm still cold, and the landlady seems like a complete idiot. What are my legal rights in Germany as a renter, and how should I proceed? Not pay rent? Buy a heater and stick her with the bill?

Please advise. Thanks!

you should join the Mietverein, they can provide you with information on your rights. You can reduce your rent by a certain amount for lack of heating but you can't stop paying it altogether.

according to this court decision, you can reduce it by 20% for the heating not working in your bedroom:


however, before you do so, I'd advise informing your landlady in WRITING that the heating is broken and give her a deadline by which to fix it (one week should be about right) and state that if it is not fixed, you will reduce the rent by 20% until it is fixed.

I think lack of heating is a reason to stop paying at all. Join the Mietverein and the get proper info.

no it isn't. It is a reason to reduce the rent, not stop it altogether.

According to some on here your landlady is not legally allowed to have a key.

You can't win as a landlord/lady here I think.

Either give (lend) the landlord one of your keys or ask her for the phone number of the plumber to get him to do the job when it is convenient for you.

Tell her to fix it within three days (give a specific date). Of course, you have to provide access to the apartment. It is not customary for the landlord or the janitor to have keys to your apartment (on a side note: if they do, change the lock, keep it, restore it when you move out).
If the heating is not fixed by the stipulated deadline you are entitled to call in a plumber to fix the boiler and send her the bill (Ersatzvornahme). However, you have to choose the cheapest offer providing the desired effect (Schadensminderungspflicht).

Courts have approved rent reduction of 30% (lack of heating) to 100% (lack of heating in the winter). Get a lawyer or join the Mieterverein to claim rent reduction.

the exact percentage you can deduct depends on a number of things, like the whether the entire heating is broken or just one room and what the temperature is without the heating. In this case, only the bedroom heating is broken, so I very much doubt that you can reduce rent by 100%. As I posted above a previous court decision ruled that 20% was appropriate for lack of heating in the bedroom.

here is another case with the same percentage:

I'd just like to say that the typical TT response of encouraging antagonistic relationships between parties is mind numbingly childish.

My tenant is a friend of mine , we look out for each others interests - I charge market rates and if he needs something I try to accomodate him asap.

This lawyer friendly behaviour just takes money out of society's pockets.

EDIT : I do retain a key to the apartment and there is no problem whatsoever in that - we are not out to get each other.

Parnell, been a landlord too I'd also agree it's best to sort things out without consulting with lawyers, as they're generally the only winners in these situations. However, I'm also renting now and my landlords are behaving unfairly so consulting with a lawyer is my next and only step.

The OP could ask about reducing the rent (in writing) and get the landlord to fix the problem in the meantime, then see how she responds.

Regretfully, over the years, you cannot help but get Germanized by the system here. Actually I don't think anyone above actually promoted anything antagonistic.

Obviously the "correct" answer is to pick up the phone and have a friendly but firm chat with the landlady as in:

"Hi, as you know...very cold in the bedroom (crack quick lighthearted joke)...very much appreciated...I do work during the days...how can we fix this together?"

But, we are all encouraged every day to LEARN the German way of life, and to INTEGRATE with the German way of life, and regretfully this means becoming totally fucking anal, having stamped
papework to take a shit, and generally being pen pushing knobs.

@ Johnny

Funny enough the tenant is a young German lad , 23 years old , together with his pregnant girlfriend.

He's smart , pays cash and there is total trust - we're having a private contractor come round on Saturday to make some repairs before there was a complaint.

I met his folks as well - his auld fellah is a banker in Frankfurt - utterly honest and open man - no bullshit at all about the lot of them.

I honestly think that we as foreigners here do not often enough take the time to do as you said - to engage the locals - and hence prefer to believe that they're an awful shower. I'm constantly amazed and impressed by the amount of evidence I experience to the contrary.

If and when said tenant is late with the rent , or has some issues - rest assured we're gonna work through them - honour is not a lost concept on these people despite what some of this country's guests post here.

I have German tenants both here in Germany and the UK. Had the odd issue in the past, but we always sort stuff amicably. But I do totally understand how folks here feel forced to seek legal redress at the first opportunity. People can get stuipidly official at the drop of a hat - much more so than in the UK.

The legal and insurance system actually encourages it over here.

You export Germans to the UK now?

It's just a funny coincidence :-) Nice people. They bake German bread in the UK.

exactly which response do you feel encourages antagonistic relationships and is numbingly childish?

Since you asked Owain :

At least Sara proposed to restore the original.

I note it mirrored another poster here :

Just told the landlady to give me the information of the repair person, and I set up a time for him to come. I'm taking the bill off the rent this month.

did she agree to you deducting the bill from the rent?

Of frigging course I posted to restore the original! That was not a boon, it's the law.
If my answer was antagonistic and numbingly childish, so are German judges.
The landlord is only entitled to a key if the tenant agrees. If the landlord enters the rented premises without the tenant's permission even if he is in legal possession of the key the tenant may immediately terminate the lease for cause as the landlord's act is considered illegal entry.

@Sarabyrd
Funny I don't see anything there about changing the locks without the owner's permission or informing the owner as per your post. I did highlight that bit in case of the hard-of-reading here.

Whenever legal questions come up on Toytown, I wait for Sarabyrd's answer as the definitive answer, and I value her posts on those subjects.

But you can also argue that invoking "the law" is already antagonistic, and by the time you're quoting "the law" at the other side, reaching an amicable agreement is becoming unlikely.

I had a real idiot of a landlord, the last house I was in, and joined the Mietverein, expecting to have problems with him down the line. We did indeed have problems, and we got our money's worth out of the Mietverein, but their way of dealing with the problem (long story short: collect receipts, send letter to landlord stating that expenses were going to be deducted from the next rent payments) did increase the animosity between us and our landlord.