Frankfurt. “Furnished room, quiet + private bathroom,” says the rental offer for the popular Munich Maxvorstadt. Price for the 15 square meters: 650 euros cold. Anyone looking for accommodation will find such advertisements more often: Especially in major German cities, landlords are increasingly advertising fully furnished apartments or rooms on common real estate portals - at particularly high prices.
According to a current study by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), the supply of furnished apartments and rooms in major cities has more than tripled since 2018. This type of housing attracts landlords not only with the prospect of higher rent, but in certain cases also because of relaxed termination rules.
A bed, a closet, a kitchen and maybe a sofa - if you rent a furnished apartment, you are often dealing with a much more flexible tenancy than with a classic unfurnished apartment. But there are pitfalls lurking when it comes to protection against dismissal. What matters is not just whether an apartment is furnished. What is particularly important is where the landlord lives and who furnished the apartment or room.
The basic rule is: A furnished apartment generally enjoys the same protection against dismissal as an unfurnished one. “A furnished apartment is legally usually a normal rental apartment, just with additional inventory,” says real estate agent Michael Freitag from Munich.
For a conventional permanent residential rental agreement, the tenant can generally terminate the contract with three months' notice. The termination must be received by the landlord no later than the third working day of a month so that the rental agreement ends at the end of the month after next.
For the landlord, three months also apply initially; After five and eight years, his notice period is extended by three months.
There are usually no special rights for the landlord when it comes to the reason for termination, just because the apartment is furnished. In principle, he needs a legitimate interest. This could be a significant breach of duty by the tenant, personal use or unreasonable economic exploitation. The reason for termination must be stated in the letter.
But there are exceptions. “For a furnished room in the landlord's apartment, a significantly different termination framework can apply than for a fully furnished apartment that the tenant uses alone,” says lawyer Wolfgang Herfurther from the law firm of the same name. The law largely excludes such living space from traditional tenant protection.
The prerequisite is that the living space is part of the apartment inhabited by the landlord and that the landlord furnishes it predominantly with furnishings. In addition, the room may not be left to the tenant for permanent use with his family or a long-term shared household.
This is the classic case of a rented, furnished granny flat or room solution within an apartment inhabited by the owner: the landlord lives in the same apartment, the tenant gets a furnished room and, if necessary, uses the kitchen or bathroom.
Protection against dismissal is significantly weaker here. A special deadline applies to such rental agreements: Termination must be declared no later than the 15th of a month and generally ends the rental agreement at the end of the same month. For example, if you give notice by September 15th, you can end the rental agreement on September 30th.
This doesn’t just apply to the landlord. The tenant can also rely on this shortened statutory notice period. An agreement that puts the tenant in a worse position upon termination would be invalid.
A second special rule must be distinguished from this. If the landlord lives in a building with no more than two apartments, he can terminate a rental agreement under easier conditions. He then does not need to prove a legitimate interest such as personal use. However, the normal notice period is extended by three months.
In the case of an open-ended tenancy, this usually means a notice period of six months for the landlord. The statutory extensions are added after five or eight years. For the tenant, however, the three-month period remains.
A common mistake is the assumption that a furnished apartment equals short protection against dismissal. The decisive factor is whether one of the statutory exceptions is met. A fully furnished apartment in an ordinary apartment building can generally fall under tenant protection as normal.
It is therefore important for tenants and landlords to differentiate: Is the apartment actually part of the apartment occupied by the landlord? Or is it a separate apartment?
It is precisely these differences that can decide whether a tenancy ends with three months' notice, whether the landlord has to wait six months or even longer - or whether, in the case of a furnished room in the apartment the landlord lives in, termination at the end of the month is even possible.
