Tenants of an apartment with a garden do not always know who is responsible for maintenance. We explain when the tenant or landlord is responsible.
Having your own garden is a dream that many tenants cannot fulfil. But even if a small (or large) garden is part of the rented apartment, this is not only accompanied by advantages. After all, this garden also wants to be properly cared for. What if the tenant doesn't feel like taking care of the garden? He may prefer to have a gardener come in so that the garden looks accurate but the tenant doesn't have to deal with excessive garden maintenance work. This is of course possible. However, the question then arises as to the costs. Who bears the costs for garden maintenance - tenants or landlords? What happens if the landlord and not the tenant commissioned the gardener? Can the costs then be passed on to the tenant in full or at least in part? In the further course we will reveal what the German case law has to say on these topics.
Who is responsible for garden maintenance?
Tenants are only responsible if this is expressly stipulated in the rental agreement!
If a garden belongs to the apartment building or the rented apartment on the ground floor, the rental agreement should clearly state who is responsible for looking after the garden. But there are also rental contracts that unfortunately do not contain such a regulation despite an existing rental garden. In this case, the tenants can assume that the maintenance of the garden is not their job, but that the landlord has to take care of it. If this task is to be transferred to the tenant, a corresponding contractual regulation is therefore required. All prospective tenants who are considering renting an apartment or a house with a garden should take a very close look at the wording regarding garden maintenance. Because it provides information about the extent to which the tenant has to take care of the maintenance of the garden.
Costs for garden maintenance by landlords or gardeners are apportionable
While maintaining a lawn or flower bed is generally not particularly expensive, it canlook completely different when trimming hedges or trees. This is one of the reasons why it is in the tenant's interest to take a close look and check what work a rental garden will mean for him in the future. Even if the landlord either takes care of the garden maintenance himself or hires a third party, such as a landscape gardener, to do this work, this does not mean that the tenant will not incur any costs. Because the costs for garden maintenance are partially apportionable. The additional costs associated with renting an apartment with a garden for the tenant should therefore be kept in mind before renting the property.
Garden maintenance by tenant
Basically, it should be noted that the tenant can only be contractually obliged to take care of the garden to a limited extent. Only simple garden work can be expected of the tenant. The following parameters must therefore apply to this garden work:
- The tenant does not need any specialist knowledge to be able to carry out the respective garden work.
- The said gardening work does not involve too much financial effort.
Mowing the lawn and removing weeds can therefore be expected of the tenant. In addition to felling, pruning trees is one of the tasks that cannot be transferred from the landlord to the tenant. Because they are not only time-consuming, but this garden work is also associated with a higher level of difficulty. The landlord is of course free to carry out this work himself or to consult a specialist. So that there can be no unnecessary disputes between tenant and landlord, it makes sense if the rental agreement already includes the following points with regard to the tenant's obligations:
- Type of Gardening
- Scope of garden maintenance
- how often the tenant should take care of the garden
Tenants decide for themselves
The landlord does not have the right to dictate to the tenant to what extent and how often he has to take care of the garden. Because if the landlord were allowed to give the tenant such specifications, then the tenant would slip into the role of an employee. Thus, the tenant can decide whether he wants to mow the lawn weekly or every two weeks. This discretion also means that the tenant can decide for themselves how much time and money they want to invest in garden maintenance.
Gardenmust not neglect
However, there are also limits. After all, the tenant must not let the garden be completely neglected, since garden maintenance is one of his contractual duties. Therefore, it can make sense to contract out the bare minimum of gardening work to be done by the tenant before the landlord intervenes. An ecological garden or trees and shrubs that are not trimmed by the tenant are to be accepted by the landlord. If the landlord attaches great importance to his taste being reflected in the design and maintenance of the garden, then he should not delegate the task of garden maintenance to the tenant. As a result, the landlord has forfeited the right to have a say.
Landlord can hire a gardener at tenant's expense in case of neglect
If the garden is completely overgrown or neglected, the landlord cannot intervene immediately. Rather, he must first ask the tenant to comply with his gardening duties. The landlord may only commission a specialist company if the tenant has failed to comply with this request again. Only then can the landlord demand reimbursement for the gardener from the tenant, although the tenant would actually have been responsible for the maintenance of the rented garden. On the other hand, if the landlord prematurely orders a gardener, he will be left with these costs. In order not to risk quarrels with your own landlord, it is of course in the interest of the tenant to carry out a minimum of gardening work or to hire a professional to do the basic garden maintenance yourself, which then has to be paid for by the tenant.
Costs for garden maintenance by the tenant
Even if the tenant takes care of the maintenance of the garden, this is of course associated with costs. From the water to water the plants to the cost of buying a lawn mower that the tenant may not have owned, there is a lot of money to be made in this case too. Therefore, the question arises to what extent the tenant has to bear these costs in full. If there is an agreement between tenant and landlord that the tenant will take care of the garden, this does not mean that the landlord has to provide the tenant with the appropriate garden tools.
Rather, the tenant has to obtain these devices themselves and also pay for them. It is therefore at the discretion of the tenant how much he wants to invest financially in the maintenance of the gardenwant to invest. Big advantage: While the one-off purchase costs for the various garden tools can be quite high, these tools are of course the property of the tenant and can either be used for garden maintenance on another property or sold when you move.
Garden maintenance by the landlord
So while there are some garden maintenance tasks that the landlord will take on in any case, it is just as conceivable that the landlord is responsible for the entire garden maintenance. If a professional gardener is to do this work, the tenant must therefore assume that the corresponding additional costs will be incurred. But to what extent can the costs for the gardener be passed on to the tenant? Does the tenant have to pay the entire bill in the end just because the landlord doesn't want to take care of the gardening himself and hasn't assigned this task to the tenant either?
Doing the gardening lowers apportionable costs for the tenant
If it is in the interest of the tenant to lend a hand in the rental garden, this should definitely be discussed with the landlord. Because while some prospective tenants simply don't feel like gardening and are happy if the landlord takes care of everything, there are also tenants who would like to let off steam in the garden themselves. If you invest time in a rental garden yourself, you can also count on lower gardening costs. In order for the landlord to be able to pass on the costs of garden maintenance to the tenant, a look at the rental agreement is again crucial.
Payable costs for garden maintenance regulated in the lease
Because the landlord is only allowed to get the gardener's money back from the tenant if the costs for garden maintenance are listed there as a possible type of additional costs. The following list gives all interested readers an overview of which costs for garden maintenance are apportionable and to what extent:
- Costs for running the lawnmower - electricity and petrol
- Personnel costs - i.e. the wages for the gardener
- Watering and Watering - Cost of Water
- Removal and replanting of trees and shrubs where this is done for age, weather or environmental reasons
- Costs for removing various garden waste including leaves
- The Removal of Faded Flowers
- Possibly operating, repair and maintenance costs for various garden tools, their use lowerPersonnel costs caused by garden maintenance
- Hedge/shrub/tree trimming cost
- Maintenance of driveways, squares and other outdoor areas located on the property
- Costs for plants / wood that have to be replaced - if plants or wood have to be purchased, the tenant usually cannot be asked to pay
- Lawn area fees - mowing/fertilizing/scarifying/etc.
- Costs for maintaining a playground (if any)
Depending on how the use of the garden is regulated in the rental agreement, all or part of the costs can be passed on to the tenant. After all, there are no other parties in a single-family apartment building that could contribute to the costs. If, on the other hand, it is an apartment building in which the tenant only rents a ground floor apartment, he does not have to bear the complete costs for the garden maintenance of all outdoor areas on the house premises. Since the front garden and the paths and driveways are mostly used by all tenants, they are all responsible for bearing the costs of maintaining these areas.
The more manicured the garden, the higher the costs
Given the long list of costs that the landlord can pass on to the tenant, tenants should think carefully about how important a beautiful, well-kept garden is to them. The more well-kept the grounds of a rental house are, the more money the responsible gardener will charge for this work. Before a tenant decides on a rental property with a garden, it should therefore be carefully checked what additional costs can be expected for garden maintenance. Because otherwise the tenant might get a nasty surprise later, which could cost him dearly.
Check service charge bill with
In some cases, the legitimacy of the apportioned costs is difficult for the tenant to understand. If you fear that the costs for garden maintenance will be too high, it is best to go to the rental association with the utility bill. After all, the landlord is not obliged to hire the cheapest gardener on the market to take care of the garden. It is therefore quite possible that the costs for garden maintenance will end up being higher than the tenant had expected. It can therefore make sense not only to have the expected amount of the additional costs laid down in the rental agreement, but also to insist that the various types of costs are broken down in detail.
What happens when you extract theTenants?
If the tenant has planted even one plant in the rented garden at his own expense during the rental period, the question arises to what extent the tenant may take these plants with him. Do the plants that the tenant has paid for still belong to him or do they belong to the landlord and can therefore not be removed from the rented garden under any circumstances? The legal provisions are not as clear on this matter as some tenant-landlord teams would like. If there is a rental garden, then it makes sense to regulate this aspect contractually as well.
For example, the rental agreement may stipulate that the plants may not be taken away, but that the landlord must pay compensation to the tenant. However, such clauses can only be found in very few rental agreements, so that in practice there are often avoidable disputes. In general, it can be stated that the chances that the tenant will be allowed to take the plants away decrease over the years. The longer the plants have grown into the soil of the rented garden, the more difficult it becomes to obtain the right to dig up these plants and take them with you. However, there is always a risk that the plants will be damaged during the move and could ultimately perish. Of course, garden furniture remains the property of the tenant, unless it has been provided by the landlord, and you even have to take it with you when you move.