ᐅ Dealing with the Termination of a Rental Agreement

Hello everyone,
the developer currently states spring 2018 as the completion date but has not provided further details yet. We can only start with the homeowner’s own work (flooring, kitchen, etc.) after that. Our moving date is therefore not fixed yet, but we have a six-month notice period for the current rental apartment.
How would you proceed here to ensure a smooth transition? Is it common to give notice in advance and request one or two extension months in writing just to be safe? Given the current market situation, I don’t expect any issues with re-letting, so the landlord probably doesn’t have to worry about vacancy...

Thanks and best regards

I would first talk to the landlord and clarify how strict they are about this.

There are all kinds of landlords. Ours was very nice and accommodating and simply asked us to keep him updated.

Once we knew the moving date, we could just hand over the keys and that was the end of it.

That might be the best-case scenario, but why shouldn’t you have a similar experience?

Hendrik007 schrieb:
But we have a 6-month notice period for our current rental apartment.

Actually, in Germany, every tenant only has a 3-month notice period.

Thanks for the information. I also don’t expect any major issues, but since many people here have likely experienced this transition, I just wanted to check how the standard procedure usually works.

It’s just like Caspar said. The maximum notice period for the tenant is three months (shorter periods are possible). Landlords who want to terminate may have to observe longer notice periods, depending on the length of the tenancy.

Are you sure that the six months in your contract don’t apply to the landlord? Is the contract very old? Is it a standard form from the DMB or something similar, or is it a self-drafted agreement?

I support this. Three months is the applicable tenancy law.