Comment by Helmut10001

14 hours ago

I have a tenant who has been living in my garden house for two years without paying rent. It is almost impossible to solve this situation. I am not even allowed to turn off the water or electricity. There are always two sides to every coin.

That’s just crazy. Were they ever a paying tenant and stopped paying. or just random stranger who broke in and decided they now lived there?

  • It was the neighbour whose house had burned down, and my mother let him move into our garden house (because winter was coming). They agreed to make a rental contract. But after he moved in, he refused to pay anything and since then it has been impossible to change that.

    • Thank you for explaining. It’s disheartening that this happened when trying to help that person.

That sucks. What law protects your renter?

  • Squatting laws, sounds like.

    • In Germany you have to file an action for possession ("Räumungsklage"). But that takes years (I brought it on its the way immediately). You cannot act on your own, it has to be legally enforced. But the legal system in Germany takes ages and human rights are higher than tenancy rights (usually good!). This often leads to deadlocks where nothing happens because you cannot evict someone and put them on the street.

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