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Landlord failed to pay electricity bill, and I am now without electricity. What recourses do I have?
I have been renting here in Berlin for nearly a year now. I pay my rent warm, and my landlord handles water, gas and electricity, which is factored into the rent that I pay him. Yesterday I su… Hello,
I have been renting here in Berlin for nearly a year now. I pay my rent warm, and my landlord handles water, gas and electricity, which is factored into the rent that I pay him. Yesterday I suddenly realized the electricity in my apartment was down, as well as a note from Stromnetz directed to him explaining that the power has been locked and for him to reach out to our electricity provider.
He does not live in the city, and has been difficult to reach and get him to solve. I am currently trying to find a renter's association (Mietverein) to help me, but I am curious about my recourse and if this warrants compensation for my time spent without power. He is certainly liable, and has apologized and claimed he is trying to fix it, but is also quite unresponsive and dismissive of the difficulties and the costs associated with losing my groceries, light, and all of my productive time, as I work from home.
Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated. As well as if anyone has a sense of where I can find regulations and rules regarding this. Thank you.
honestly you need to call Berliner Mieterverein or the Berliner Mieterbund tomorrow morning, they'll handle the legal side for like 60 euros a year. in the meantime you can actually get a temporary electricity setup from Stromnetz Berlin directly, they have a notfall service that'll reconnect you within 24h if you explain the situation, costs around 50 euros but you can bill the landlord for it. also worth knowing that without power for more than 24h you can legally reduce your rent by like 10-20% per day until it's fixed, and if you work from home you might even push for more since it's a home office situation. just keep a log of everything and send him a formal email with all the costs and your mietminderung so you have it in writing
yeah you're on the right track with the mieterverein, just get that membership done asap. also worth knowing that if your landlord doesn't fix it within a reasonable time you can have it done yourself and deduct the cost from the rent, just give him a written warning first with a deadline
check if your hausratversicherung covers food spoilage, some do even if it's the landlord's fault
What is the correct spelling for a street name that appears differently on multiple signs in Charlottenburg?
Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.
if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point
honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.
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