As of: February 5, 2024, 1:30 p.m
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The search for accommodation in Germany is becoming more and more absurd.
In Munich, a young woman was confronted with a particularly bold demand from a landlord.
If you are looking for an apartment, you can experience a lot, especially in big cities like Munich, Berlin or Hamburg.
Apartments or rooms that are the size of a shoebox are rented out at horrendous prices, or enormous sums are charged to replace furniture.
Many people simply take advantage of the housing shortage to enforce their conditions.
And so it happens that landlords not only make outrageous demands when it comes to rent, as a case from Munich shows.
Looking for an apartment: Landlords demand proof that the woman is not pregnant
When looking for an apartment, tenants don't have to accept everything.
For example, questions about existing pregnancies are not permitted.
(Symbolic image) © Sebastian Rau/photothek.de/Imago
As
Sueddeutsche.de
reports, a young woman is said to have been interested in a 2-room apartment in the Schwabing district - 60 square meters for just over 1,000 euros.
The advertisement appeared on the
wg-gesucht.de platform.
The woman quickly contacted the landlords via the housing portal's internal messaging service, whereupon she immediately received a reply by email: Apartment viewings were therefore only possible if proof was provided that “there is currently no pregnancy”.
Children under 3 years of age are also expressly not welcome.
Confirmation that there is no pregnancy can also be done online upon request “free of charge via a designated doctor,” the report continues.
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The young woman could hardly believe the demand: “I found it absurd that something like that would be asked for when viewing an apartment,” she said in an interview with
Sueddeutsche.de.
Curiously, just two hours later, the landlord's rejection followed: "Since we have not yet received a response from you or you have not yet registered for the certificate, you are hereby receiving a rejection for the apartment."
The fact that proof of pregnancy is required in order to obtain a viewing appointment is new even for professionals, as Anja Franz, spokeswoman for the Munich tenants' association, confirmed to
Sueddeutsche.de
: "I've never heard of anything like that before," she says, "that's crazy, truly unbelievable".
Many people looking for an apartment prefer to try their luck with their own advertisement.
Are questions about pregnancy permitted when looking for an apartment?
In fact, asking about an existing pregnancy or family planning when looking for an apartment is legally inadmissible.
Anyone who has to answer such a question in the tenant's self-disclosure can even lie without having to fear legal consequences, informs the portal
mietrecht.org
.
“Even if the landlord expressly only wants the apartment to be given to childless couples and no other children live in the apartment building, a tenant can keep her pregnancy secret when she signs a rental agreement,” says a post on the website.
The personal rights of the tenants outweigh the possible interests of the landlords.
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Apartment advert deleted after just a few hours
The apartment ad from Munich was deleted after just a few hours, as was the associated account.
However, given the high demand for rental apartments, this is not uncommon in order to avoid overflowing mailboxes.
The authenticity of the apartment ad with the corresponding ad number was at least confirmed by
wg-gesucht.de
.
Do you already know the most common pitfalls in rental agreements?
What tenants should consider before signing.