Before the Bremen District Court, the owner of an apartment building demands that one of her tenants limit her pet ownership to two dogs or one dog and one cat (AZ 6 C 32/15). The background is that the tenant has taken in several animals in her 77.25 square meter 3.5 room since she moved in in 1979. These include small and large animals, including a cat, six dogs and several rodents kept in cages. The tenant applied for a permit to keep animals only in 2014, after she received a complaint regarding the noise pollution caused by the animals.
The owner responded to the tenant's request with a letter dated Aug. 28, 2014, requesting that the tenant restrict the keeping of large animals, as stated above. The tenant did not respond to the letter, so the owner repeated her request a month later. The tenant dismissed the claim in a lawyer's letter dated 14.11.2014, the landlady also responded with a lawyer's letter and set the tenant a deadline to reduce the number of animals by 31.12.2014, which the tenant repeatedly failed to comply with.
In the lawsuit, the Bremen District Court rejected the owner's claim and ruled in favor of the tenant. This is because the owner's claim violates Sections 535 (1), 538, 541 of the German Civil Code (BGB) by limiting the consent-free keeping of cats and dogs to two large animals. According to this regulation, other large animals are excluded from keeping if there is no approval of the landlady. Pursuant to Section 307 (1), (2) No. 1 of the German Civil Code (BGB), this provision is invalid because it is to be regarded as an unreasonable disadvantage to the tenant.
Source: AG Bremen
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