Hello people.

I am a non EU working in Germany and moved here last year to an apartment owned by a company.

Last week we received this letter. If I understand correctly it is about people storing their belongings in common areas of the basement (which is not allowed according to the contract) and they being asked to remove them by 08.May. If I also understand correctly, any cost of removal of this stuff by the firm after 08 May will be split among residents of all the apartments of the building.

We don't have any of our belongings stored in the basement whatsoever and we do no want to pay for the removal of the things left by other people. Does it make sense to ask the firm that we want to opt out of the trash removal charges because the trash is not ours?

by Environmental_Gas318

8 comments

  1. You understand correctly.

    I doubt that you will be very successful in denying to pay for the removal, and trying to do that will most likely lead to a lot of annoyance for you. You might eventually be able to not pay if you are willing to go to court over it.

    Trying doesn’t hurt, though. I would consider writing a letter claiming that none of the stuff is yours, and that you don’t really view it as your responsibility to pay for it. The response will probably be that sadly they cannot tell who the stuff belongs to, and thus the most fair way to handle it is for everyone to pay their part, and sadly they cannot exclude you from that.

    They are also saying that if you know who the stuff belongs to, you can tell them company about that.

  2. > Does it make sense to ask the firm that we want to opt out of the trash removal charges because the trash is not ours?

    no, doesn’t make sense. it’s common, that all have to pay although only some tenants behave like a**holes

  3. The law basically sees all renters as a pool of people that can be held liable to uphold certain standards. Either you find out who owns the stuff in the common area and push for the removal, or risk that it does not get removed so the landlord will hire a cleaning company and split the bill among all renters.

  4. > and we do no want to pay for the removal of the things left by other people.

    Then it’s in your interest to identify the owners of the stuff that is parked there, and pressure them into removing it.

    Which is exactly why your landlord chose this method. I don’t think you can “opt out” of paying if that doesn’t happen (would be part of the Nebenkosten for Hausmeister service), but IANAL.

  5. It’s still your house – fixing a problem there is to your benefit, even if it’s not you who caused the problem.

    It’s not like if there’s a fire and the exit ways are blocked, only the person who stuff is blocking the way will burn and the rest of you will magically phase through the obstacles.

  6. You can ask, but they’ll probably refuse. Such costs are simply shared among all tenants. If the staircase gets professionally cleaned, those costs are/would be distributed as well. No matter who has the most dirty shoes. 

  7. If that was possible, then everyone would say the same (even the owner of the stuff) and no one would end up paying.

    They’re just hoping for the owner to be reasonable and remove the things himself, but also if others have concrete information on who might be the owner then speak about it.

  8. Is there a lot of stuff?
    If it indeed belongs to the people who moved out, could you not wait util the 8th is over and arrange with your other tenants to remove it yourself? The’d come on the 9th and the sfuff will be gone.

    Alternatively, you could all go around and ask everyone to sign it is not theirs, and deliver that to the services manager and say becausse nobody currently living there is responsible, the responsibility falls to them.

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