How can I check the age of the building to determine if it's covered by Mietpreisbremse prior to signing a contract?

A couple of things the existing replies missed. For the building age, if it's a Plattenbau or a building from the DDR era, the baujahr is usually stamped on the building itself somewhere near the entrance, often on a small metal plaque. For the renovation exemption, the landlord needs to have done the work after October 1, 2014, and the cost per square meter has to be at least one third of the cost of a comparable new building. You can ask to see the Rechnung or the Modernisierungsankündigung, and if they refuse, that's a red flag the exemption might not hold up. I'd also check the Mietspiegel online, the Bezirksamt Pankow and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg have particularly detailed ones.

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the easiest way is to check the berliner mietshaus adressbuch online, it lists construction years for most buildings from before 1990. for newer ones, try the bezirksamt's bauakte archive, costs like 10-15 euro to request but gives u the actual permit date. as for the renovation exemption, landlords have to prove the modernisierungskosten hit 1/3 of the cost of a comparable new building, which is rare tbh. you can ask for the invoice summary but they might push back, just know the burden of proof is on them if it ever goes to court

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check the mietspiegel for berlin, it literally tells u which baujahre are exempt. renovated section is a joke honestly, they'd need costs at least 1/3 of a neubau which is basically never for a single apartment. ask for the modernisierungsre

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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.

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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

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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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