House Rules For Tenants: Fill & Download for Free

Here’s an idea, take it or leave it.Sit your Dad down and have the following conversation:“Dad, I’d like to begin paying rent for my room, so that I can begin covering my share of the expenses in this house. Can we please talk about what you think would be fair?”That conversation should lead to a good conversation about the rules of the house and how the rules for a tenant should be different than the rules for a child. You need to gain agreement that those rules change once you start paying rent, and once you have made your first rent payment, if he mentions this, or anything else the two of you have agreed to, you can remind him of the agreement.You’re not a child anymore. As such, it’s only fair you should begin to do what you can to pay your way. Once you are contributing your fair share, the power dynamics change in a much more concrete way than “how long ago were you born?”

A housing society can make reasonable rules for tenants. One such rule could be noise abrogation after 11 pm, no constant guests staying long (more than 7 days) at the residency, society parking allowed for tenant vehicles only, etc. Society can charge up to 10% of AMC towards non-occupancy charges but no more. Who pays this is a matter between landlord and tenant. Usually landlord pays it.Many societies make a rule that bachelors/singles or sharers will not be allowed. This kind of rule is against the rights of the tenant and cannot be made. The tenant or landlord can take the society to the court over such rules (that no one does is a different sad matter).

Yes, at least not on Sundays.Germany has laws regulating noise emissions set by the Länder (federal states), supplemented by common house rules set by landlords. Germans by and large rent apartments far more than people in the English-speaking world, with as much as three quarters of Germans living in rented homes, so such house rules carry much more weight.The laws generally restrict when you cannot make noise loud enough to be heard outside your home, such as drilling, running a vacuum, playing music, etc., the so-called Ruhezeit, quiet time. Typically the Ruhezeit is from 10 pm to 6 am daily and all day Sunday.If a neighbor is making noise during this legal Ruhezeit, you are entitled to call the local police or Ordnungsamt (“office of order” — how much more German can you get) to force them to stop, though they will usually ask you to try asking the neighbors yourself before having the cops show up or a fine charged by the Ordungsamt.House rules may restrict this further by adding afternoons from 1 to 3 pm (because of small children taking their afternoon nap). In such cases the landlord will warn the offending tenant and threaten them with eviction.That said, neighbors who take enforcing the rules to extremes will likely be very disliked by the other neighbors, who will call them a Blockwart — a term from the Nazi era for a petty party official and local resident appointed by the authorities to spy on neighbors and enforce rules in the neighborhood. (Saying it to their face, though, will get you slapped with a lawsuit and fine for slander.)To Americans this often sounds a little insane, but when you have such a high population density like in much of Germany, such rules are inevitable and make a lot of sense in practice — if not taken to nitpicking extremes Blockwart-style.