Is Schufa legit?

nope, schufa is still very much alive and well in berlin. if anything i feel like landlords have gotten more aggressive about it since the housing market got tighter. what you might be thinking of is that since 2021 or so they can't charge you for the schufa check anymore, that used to be a thing where they'd bill you 15-20 euro for "processing" it. but they still want to see the document itself, especially the bonitätsauskunft which costs you like 30 euro at the post office. if you're applying in popular spots like prenzlauer berg or kreuzberg just assume you'll need one

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The Schufa system is a bit of a grey area legally but in practice it's still standard. What you might be mixing up is the new EU-wide GDPR-ish rules about credit scoring transparency, which don't really stop landlords from asking but do mean Schufa has to explain how they calculate your score if you request it. I'd just pull your free annual Schufa report online, it takes five minutes and you'll see exactly what they have on you. Saves the 30 euro fee and gives you something to hand over without paying for their premium service.

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yeah schufa is definitely still a thing here, no law changed that. that ruling some people reference just clarified landlords need a legit reason to ask, but they always find one tbh. if you're applying for apartments in neukölln or wedding they'll basically laugh if you refuse to give it. your best bet is to just get the free schufa bonitätscheck once a year, it's enough for most landlords and saves you from paying the 30€ every time

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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the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated.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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