In a lawsuit before the Berlin-Neukölln Local Court (AZ 65 S 55/19), a tenant sued his landlady regarding her obligation to provide information and evidence about the amount of rent paid by the previous tenant. The lawsuit was about the fact that the landlady demanded a monthly rent of 1,300 euros, although the permissible rent at that time was 806 euros. The landlady based her claim on an exception (Section 556 e (1) of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch - BGB)), according to which she was also entitled to demand from her current tenant the amount of rent that had already been paid previously.
The Berlin-Neukölln Local Court dismissed the claim. According to the court's decision, the landlady had fulfilled her obligation to provide information, and the tenant had no further claims for the submission of receipts. With this decision, the plaintiff appealed and was successful before the Berlin Regional Court. According to Section 556 g (3) of the German Civil Code (BGB), the tenant is entitled to the submission of receipts. This could be proven either by the former rental agreement or by the demand of the rent increase request at that time, the personal data could be blacked out.
The district court based its decision on the fact that the tenant would have had to conduct a reclaim or declaratory judgment process without the submission of the receipts, in which the defendant would have had to submit the receipts anyway. Accordingly, the landlady could have provided them to the plaintiff out of court beforehand.
Source: Berlin Regional Court
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