Increasing the rent

What if you want to push your yield and increase the rent?

Like everything in Germany this is subject to law.

The sale of a property doesn’t change anything in the ability to increase rents at all.
The former as well as the new owner can only increase the rent by a maximum of 20 percent within three years. Other restrictiosn apply in addition. The increasment is due to the maximum rent of a comparable flats. The basic for further discussions should be a look in the annualy published “rentindex” (German Word is ‘Mietspiegel’).

But be carefull, the “rentindex” is a tricky thing. Because its only published for a certain size of flats, small flats and big flats are ‘mostly’ not covered or at least not representative (in a statistical meaning). And sometimes there is just a small number of flats define the price. In this case the landlord (or the renter) can show the judge by own research, were the maximum could be.

Another restriction is that the ‘coldrent’ doesn’t have to be increased within the last 12 month.
Good seller/broker hand you normally a so called renterlist (German Word: ‘Mieterliste’), with the size of the flat and all the sidecosts, etc. If its a good maintained renterlist it tells you about the last date of rentincreasment.

If the rental contract is terminated, by what case ever, the rent for the next rents can be as high as you like (or at least as high as you can find a renter).

Also the rent can be increased if the flat/house is modernized (Renovation is not enough).
This increasement can be 11 percent of the total modernisation costs per year.