Bremen Local Court, 15 November 2012, Ref.: 9 C 346/12
Tenants' communal duties are usually regulated in the house rules. These also include stairwell cleaning. The house rules are then included in the tenancy agreement via a corresponding clause.
If there is no express contractual agreement in the tenancy agreement or in the house rules, a tenant is generally not obliged to clean the stairwell or common areas.
If the tenant does not carry out the cleaning work incumbent upon him despite the contractual obligation, the landlord can issue a warning and set a deadline for the cleaning to be carried out.
If the tenant continues to refuse, the landlord can also sue the tenant for fulfilment and have the resulting title enforced.
In the above-mentioned judgement by Bremen District Court, the tenant refused to clean the property, whereupon the landlord commissioned a specialist cleaning company and demanded reimbursement of the costs from the tenant.
Facts of the Case:
Tenant was assigned to clean the stairwell on a monthly basis
The defendant was a tenant of the plaintiff and had been assigned to clean the stairwell and the common areas of the rented property for the month of February 2012 in accordance with the house rules included in the tenancy agreement.
Plaintiff formally warned tenant and commissioned cleaning service
The tenant did not fulfil this obligation, so that the plaintiff sent him a warning letter dated 7 March 2012. When the defendant still did not respond, the plaintiff commissioned a specialist cleaning company to clean the stairwell and the common rooms. The specialist company carried out the cleaning on 14.03.2012.
Judgement of the Local Court of Bremen
The Bremen Local Court ruled that the defendant was obliged to carry out the cleaning work from the 3rd working day of February 2012 at the latest, in accordance with the contractual agreement.
Court followed the landlord's opinion and saw the tenant's obligation to clean
Unless otherwise agreed, a regular cleaning schedule and the tenant's ancillary obligation associated with it should, in case of doubt, be understood to mean that cleaning must be carried out in advance and not at the end of the month.
This is because the gross rent is to be paid in advance in the present case - as is usual (see Section 556b BGB, Section 2 (2) of the tenancy agreement). In this respect, the obligation to clean the stairwell on a regular basis is an item that could alternatively be apportioned as an ancillary operating cost item and would then be payable in advance.
Furthermore, it makes sense in the interests of all tenants that when a cleaning schedule is first introduced, cleaning is carried out immediately at the beginning of the month and that this cleaning sequence is maintained thereafter; otherwise the tenants would have a dirty stairwell to complain about in the first month of introducing the cleaning schedule. Within three working days, it is usually possible for the tenant to fulfil his obligation, if necessary in the evening.
Landlady was also entitled to hire a cleaning service
The obligation to clean the stairwell must be fulfilled immediately by the tenant assigned in each case due to the nature of the matter. As all tenants are entitled to expect a regularly and promptly cleaned stairwell in their own interest, the landlord is not obliged to set a defaulting tenant a deadline in advance and only commission a specialist company with the cleaning or carry out the cleaning itself after the deadline has expired without result.
In practice, this would mean that the stairwell might remain uncleaned for up to three weeks and other tenants might subsequently feel compelled not to take the cleaning schedule too seriously.
However, if the cleaning schedule was not adhered to punctually by all tenants, this could lead to complaints from other tenants in the building - including rent reductions - which could result in the landlord having the stairwell cleaning carried out by a specialist company from the outset and the tenants sharing in the corresponding costs.
This could not be in the interest of the tenants and therefore also not in the interest of the tenant assigned to clean - here: the defendant.
Source: District Court of Bremen
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One Response
Thank you for the interesting article. If all this is stipulated in the tenancy agreement and the tenant does not fulfil the obligation, the landlord is quite entitled to do so.