A few months ago, I posted here about how our landlords wanted my wife and me to leave our apartment after just seven months because their daughter needed it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1v9n4u3/landlord_wants_us_out_after_only_7_months_because/
That post received an overwhelming response, and I am really thankful to everyone who shared advice and suggestions. Since many people were interested in knowing what happened afterwards, I thought I should share an update.
We finally moved out, but unfortunately, the problems with our former landlords are still not over.
When we moved into the apartment, it was far from being in a proper condition.
The walls were quite dirty, the bathroom cabinet was so dirty that we couldn't use it properly, and the bathroom heater wasn't working during the winter.
We had to contact the homeowners and ask them to arrange cleaning and fix these issues. Even after that, not everything was properly taken care of.
We have photographs documenting the condition of the apartment when we moved in.
Despite all this, we tried to make the apartment our home. We cleaned, arranged our furniture and settled in, believing that we would be staying there for a long time because we had signed an indefinite rental contract.
And then, just seven months later, we were told to leave because their daughter needed the apartment.
After we found another apartment, we agreed to end our tenancy.
But then came another set of demands.
The landlords wanted us to repaint the apartment before handing it over.
Considering the condition in which we received the apartment, we found this quite unreasonable.
Fortunately, we had already contacted the Mieterbund (tenants' association). After the Mieterbund sent them a letter regarding our obligations, the landlords dropped their demand that we repaint the apartment.
That was a relief, but another issue was waiting for us.
When we moved in, there were already several pieces of furniture in the apartment.
We purchased only three items from the previous tenant: a sofa, a table and a bed.
Other furniture, including a shelf/table in the living room and a small table in the bedroom, was already there. Our understanding from the previous tenant was that these belonged to the homeowners.
Before moving out, the landlords suddenly demanded that we remove these items as well, claiming that they were our furniture.
We explained that these were already present in the apartment when we moved in and provided photographs as evidence.
Interestingly, after we provided the photographs, their explanation changed.
Now, instead of simply claiming that the furniture belonged to us, they are saying that these items were given to us as a gift by the previous tenant.
We never agreed to accept these items as gifts.
We also tried contacting the previous tenant to clarify the situation, but unfortunately, we have not been able to reach them.
So now we are in a situation where the landlords are claiming that we are responsible for furniture we never purchased or agreed to take ownership of.
After everything that had happened, we decided to bring a witness to the apartment handover.
We felt this was a reasonable precaution considering the ongoing disagreements.
However, the landlords were clearly unhappy about the presence of our witness.
What surprised me even more was that they later wrote to the Mieterbund expressing their frustration about us bringing a witness.
I genuinely don't understand why having someone witness an apartment handover should be such a problem.
The landlords are still holding our entire security deposit, and the disagreement regarding the furniture remains unresolved.
We have been trying to resolve these issues through the Mieterbund, but it is honestly exhausting.
When I think about the whole experience, what frustrates me most is that we never wanted to leave this apartment in the first place.
We signed an indefinite contract, accepted an apartment that wasn't in the best condition, spent our own money making it comfortable, and tried to be responsible tenants.
Then, within seven months, we had to search for another apartment, arrange another move, spend more money and go through all the stress again.
And even after handing over the keys, the problems continue.
One thing we really regret now is not taking legal expenses insurance (Rechtsschutzversicherung) when we came to Germany.
At that time, we never imagined that we would end up in a situation where we might need legal assistance just to deal with our landlords. We thought that having a proper rental contract, paying rent on time and following the rules would be enough.
Now we realise how important legal protection can be, especially for foreigners who may not fully understand the legal system here. We also learned that such insurance generally needs to be arranged before a dispute arises, since existing disputes are usually not covered.
We came to Germany to study, work hard and build our careers. We wanted to focus on our education, research and professional future, not spend our time fighting over old furniture, apartment conditions and security deposits.
Germany is often described as a developed country with strong laws, proper systems and a civilised society. That was also one of the reasons we believed things would be handled fairly here.
But experiencing this kind of petty behaviour from our landlords has honestly been disappointing. It is difficult to understand how people can make such an issue out of a few pieces of old furniture while completely ignoring the inconvenience, stress and financial burden their decisions have caused us.
I know that not everyone in Germany behaves like this, and we have also met many genuinely kind and helpful people here. But experiences like this certainly make you question the expectations you had when you first came to this country.
We didn't come here expecting special treatment. We just expected to be treated fairly and with some basic decency.
Has anyone here gone through a similar situation where the landlord withheld your security deposit without any valid reason? The Mieterbund told us that landlords in Germany can generally retain the deposit for up to six months, so we may have to wait before taking further action. Honestly, this is extremely frustrating, especially when we have photographic evidence and written records to support our side of the story. Despite having all this evidence, we are still left waiting to get our own money back. This is our hard-earned money, and after everything we have already gone through, it feels really unfair that we have to keep fighting for something that rightfully belongs to us.
Has anyone successfully dealt with a similar situation? How long did it take you to get your deposit back?
We are still trying to resolve this situation through the Mieterbund, and I hope that someday I can share a more positive update.
