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Information for interested private landlords from Munich and surroundings
Are you allowed to rent out all or part of your accommodation?
- As a tenant of an apartment, you should always agree a sublease with your landlord in advance.
- Since 15.12.2017, the new revised law on the Prohibition of Misappropriation of Housing has entered into force. It only applies to the urban area of Munich, not for neighbouring communities such as Dornach, Haar, Riem, Vaterstetten, Grünwald, etc.. The following is permitted:
- the partial letting, e.g. individual rooms of an owner-occupied flat, as long as the leased area does not account for more than 50% of the total living space, whereby the ancillary rooms shared by the guest, e.g. kitchen, bathroom, hallway, etc., are credited pro rata.
- the short-term rental of an otherwise owner-occupied, complete apartment/house, for example during one's own holiday or during the Oktoberfest, etc. up to 8 weeks in the calendar year - also spread over several shorter periods.
- the surrender of one's own home to friends and acquaintances in return for an unspecified expense allowance.
- There is no vacancy within the scope of the misappropriation norms if an apartment used as a second home is vacant in the absence of the user.
- The law applicable to Berlin, which allows tourists to rent out a second home in the meantime, does not apply to Munich.
- It is not permitted to rent an independent, complete accommodation (apartment/flat/house) to constantly changing tourists for a short-term rental period of less than 3 months. This is explained in a decision of the Munich Social Committee of 30.01.14, according to which a stay of more than 3 months is to be classified as residential use. In the opinion of the City of Munich, however, a permitted long-term letting is only to be assumed from 6 months onwards - the space in between is the responsibility of the concrete individual examination in each case.
It is regrettable that there are currently no unambiguous statements from the city concerning this! Thus also in the future some situations remain unclear and open for further interpretations.
At the request of the city the online portal "Checkin" is obliged to provide information in its intermediary function.
Officially appointed persons may enter flats/rooms at an appropriate time of day.eauftragte Personen dürfen zu angemessener Tageszeit Wohnungen/Wohnräume betreten.
Offering private accommodation, e.g. via an online portal, is generally permitted. Thus it is at least possible to offer your living space for a period of 8 weeks/year.
Further information can be found at , search term: "Zweckentfremdung". Responsible: the City of Munich, Social Department, Department for Housing and Migration, Department for Housing Maintenance, Welfenstr.22, 81541 München, Tel.: 089/233-0.
What requirements should landlords and their accommodation meet for letting?
- You should be hospitable and open-minded towards strangers so that your guests can feel comfortable with you and that your experiences with them are an enrichment and not a burden.
- Your accommodation should be clean and well-kept and have a bathroom or shared bathroom. A kitchen or its shared use is also often requested; bed linen and towels are obligatory. A television and Internet access/WiFi are almost standard today.
What should you know about your guests?
- We are anxious to arrange respectable guests for you and inform you, as far as possible, about everything we can find out about the guest, his nationality and his reason for travelling.
- When you are included in our database, you not only have the opportunity to decide for yourself which nationalities you want to include - we also make sure, for example, that the foreign language skills of the host and host match or that you only want to have female or male guests included.
- As we have been operating as an agency since 2002, we already have quite a few regular guests who are familiar to us, such as craft companies and fitters, trade fair visitors, business travellers and normal visitors to our city, who repeatedly appreciate our service and make use of it.
- Of course you determine the basic conditions of your landlord activity, e.g. the maximum number of persons allowed to stay overnight, whether children are allowed and at what age - and whether dogs are also welcome.
What rental can you expect?
- The rent should match the location and equipment; it depends of course on the number of guests and the rental period.
- At certain times, such as the Oktoberfest or selected trade fairs, etc., higher rents may also be charged. Supply and demand regulate the business.
- It is advisable to set a moderate rental price at the beginning of your landlord activity in order to test the demand.
- Based on our many years of regional experience, we will be happy to advise you on how to determine the optimum rent.
Who pays the commission for the services of the agency?
- For our expenditure we charge a commission, which is justified e.g. by the maintenance of our on-line portal, the support of our hosts with the profile production of their accommodation, the correspondence between agency, host and guest, the advertisement, etc., by our hosts.
- For short-term rentals up to one month we receive our commission directly from the guest.
- For rentals from one month/long-term rentals the ordering principle according to §1, paragraph 3 of the Housing Agency Act applies; the tenant is being offered a commission-free accommodation, the host is charged an internal commission, which is to be paid to the agency after invoicing and can be claimed for tax purposes as income-related expenses. Due to the exception in the rent brake for furnished real estate, or real estate with limited rental contracts, these costs can be priced into the total rent to be paid by the tenant.
What are the main tax considerations?
The rental of accommodation is not a commercial activity as long as its nature is not comparable to that of a hotel or guesthouse - it is usually classified as a business tax-exempt asset management.
- Rental income is income from letting and leasing and is taxable as such.
- So-called small entrepreneurs - up to 17,500 € annual turnover - are exempt from VAT. Below this turnover limit, no 7% must be deducted from the rent.
We are not authorized to provide tax advice. The above information is therefore provided without warranty and liability. If you have any questions, please contact your tax advisor.
Miscellaneous
Bundesmeldegesetz - Duty of cooperation for landlords
- In the case of rentals to domestic guests of less than 6 months and foreign guests of less than 3 months, there is no reporting requirement.
- For longer stays, the landlord is obliged to actively participate in the registration and deregistration of the tenant by issuing and signing a certificate for the registration authority.
Energy pass
- The new Energy Saving Ordinance/EnEV2014 has been in force since 1 May 2014. In most cases, the consumption-based energy certificate required here is sufficient. It always refers to the entire building and is available from the property management or can be applied for on the Internet - Google search for "Create energy certificate".
- As long as no inspection occurs, the landlord must present the energy certificate only at the request of the tenant.
Provider identification obligation
The provider identification according to § 5a Abs. 3 UWG states that the agency Checkin the address and the name of the landlord, for which a contract is concluded, must expressly designate. This obligation does not have to be fulfilled yet during the application phase, at the latest however then with the obligatory confirmation of the room reservation or room reservation, so that the customer knows, with whom he actually locked a contract.
