Your tenants' association for carefree living in legal matters – become a member and benefit from the advantages!
99, -Euro per year
Tenant modernisation
Legal protection makes sense
Before tenants modernise their flat themselves and invest money in it, they should make sure they are legally protected. It must be clarified whether the planned building work is permitted at all or whether the landlord must give their consent. And there is also a risk of unpleasant surprises when you move out. The landlord does not have to take over the investment and may be able to demand that the tenant's modernisation be removed.
Structural changes
Structural alterations, i.e. all modernisation work that interferes with the building fabric of the house or flat, are only permitted with the landlord's consent. This applies to extensive bathroom renovations, the installation of an additional shower, floor renovation, laying parquet or laminate flooring, installation of gas heating, etc. However, the landlord should also be asked for permission in advance for minor building work.
Anyone who puts in a partition wall, installs wood panelling, shortens door leaves or installs security locks and peepholes runs the risk that the landlord will demand that this tenant investment be removed during the tenancy. Even if the reversal of this tenant modernisation during the rental period is contrary to ‘good faith’, these issues will be renegotiated and disputed at the end of the rental period at the latest.
In exceptional cases, however, the landlord may be obliged to agree to more extensive interventions in the building fabric. This is the case if the tenant's intended measure is intended to make the flat habitable or if the building measure has become a matter of course due to technical progress, such as laying a power line, installing a socket in the bathroom, laying new power lines so that more than one large electrical appliance can be used.
Investments and move-out
Whether the tenant can demand financial compensation for his modernisation work when he moves out depends crucially on whether there are corresponding contractual agreements between him and the landlord. The landlord's consent to the investments alone does not mean that the tenant will receive compensation for his work at the end of the contract. At best, he can assume that he cannot be obliged to restore the property to its original condition. At least if the landlord has agreed to costly tenant investments during the rental period without reservation or if the flat has only been restored to a contractual condition as a result of the tenant's work.
If the tenant relies solely on statutory regulations, i.e. has not made any agreements or arrangements with the landlord, there are three options:
- The tenant can remove his investments – fixtures or fittings – when he moves out and take them with him. The landlord can prevent this by paying appropriate compensation.
- The landlord accepts that the tenant takes everything with them. However, the tenant must then restore the flat to its ‘old state’, i.e. with the old bathroom fittings and the old floor covering.
- The landlord expressly requests the tenant to take his fixtures and fittings with him and demands that the flat be returned in its original condition.
In practice, the tenant's right to remove is often a ‘toothless lion’. As the landlord has the right to demand the removal, he has the upper hand. In most cases, the fixtures and fittings in the new flat are unusable for the tenant. However, it is almost always economically unreasonable to take these items with you. In the case of flooring, this is practically impossible, which means that new flooring must be laid. If the old bathroom fittings are no longer available, new ones will have to be purchased. As a rule, landlords do not have to offer any reimbursement for tenants' investments remaining in the flat. Tenants can often be happy if the landlord does not demand the return of the flat in its original condition and ‘allows’ them to leave the investments in the flat. There is then no question of compensation.
Keyword: Accessibility
With the reform of tenancy law in 2001, the legislator expressly regulated a conceivable case of tenant modernisation: A disabled tenant or a tenant who lives with a disabled relative or partner can demand the landlord's consent to structural alterations if they are necessary for the disabled to use the flat or for barrier-free access. Examples: Installation of a lift in the stairwell, widening of doors, disabled-friendly bathroom, grab rails, emergency call system, wheelchair ramp.
The landlord can only refuse consent in exceptional cases. The prerequisite would be that his interest in the unchanged condition of the building or the interests of the other tenants in the building prevail.
When weighing up the interests, which must be done by the court if necessary, the following must be taken into account: Type, duration and severity of the obstruction; scope and necessity of the construction measures; duration of the construction period; possibility of dismantling; building law issues / monument protection; impairment of the co-tenants. Furthermore, the landlord can make his consent dependent on the tenant taking out liability insurance and providing appropriate additional security, a kind of second rental deposit. Adequate here means that the security should be high enough to enable the landlord to finance a possible demolition at the end of the tenancy.