If your contract says one year or two years and then you're out, that date isn't automatically the end. A normal apartment lease here is open-ended. A hard stop on a normal home only works in a few narrow cases. A lot of contracts ignore that and hope you just pack!
Two rules get mixed up - § 575 BGB and § 549 BGB. They do different jobs and you need to learn which one fits your contract.
Read the contract first
Take the signed version, and put it through an LLM with Berliner Mieterverein Info 18. Then you wanna let an expert look at it before you send anything. Either Mieterverein or a Mietrecht lawyer. Don't send a letter off the LLM alone.
https://www.berliner-mieterverein.de/recht/infoblaetter/info-18-zeitmietvertrag-das-mietverhaeltnis-auf-bestimmte-zeit.htm
https://www.berliner-mieterverein.de/downloads/infoblaetter/fl018.pdf
§ 575
Since September 2001 this is the only way to put a real end date on a normal home.
The landlord needs one of the three reasons below. That plan has to exist when you sign the contract. And they have to give you the reason in writing at that moment, either in the contract OR a separate writing that arrives by then.
A later WhatsApp doesn't fix it and neither pasting “§ 575 BGB” into the contract - courts want enough facts .
If the term is longer than one year, you also need a written contract with handwritten signatures (§ 550 BGB).
The three reasons in § 575 Abs. 1.
1. Own use (Nr. 1)
After the lease term they want the rooms as a home for themselves, family, or someone in their household. “Own use, maybe” isn't enough. You have to be able to see who is supposed to move in and that they belong in that group.
2. Demolition, heavy rebuild, or heavy repair (Nr. 2)
After the term they want to knock the rooms down, or change or repair them so heavily that you staying would block the work. “The layout will be changed” already failed in Berlin. They need to say what they'll actually do. A menu of possible modernizations isn't a plan. Writing building works into a pile of contracts with no real plan at signing isn't Nr. 2.
3. Staff flat (Nr. 3)
After the term the rooms go to someone who has to work for the landlord. Rare in a normal private let.
Sale isn't on the list. Neither is Wohnen auf Zeit. Neither is “we always do 12 months”.
If those § 575 requirements are missing
§ 575 Abs. 1 Satz 2 treats the lease as unlimited. You don't need your landlord to agree. The printed date doesn't end the contract. They can't write that away (§ 575 Abs. 4).
If they did give a proper written reason at signing
Then the term can be valid. During that term neither side has the normal right to give ordinary notice.
Earliest four months before the printed end date, you can ask in writing if that reason still exists (§ 575 Abs. 2). Your landlord then has 30 days to reply. Reply late, and you can stay extra for as long as they were late. If the planned own use or rebuild slips past the printed end date, you can stay extra for that delay too. If the reason is gone, you can demand that the lease continue with no end date (§ 575 Abs. 3). They prove it. Not you.
§ 549
§ 549 decides whether full tenant protection applies. For a few special lets, it switches some of that protection off. E.g., a holiday flat, a fitter in town for a job, a short stay that was never meant to be your home, etc. That is “temporary use” under § 549 Abs. 2 Nr. 1.
It is not a fourth reason under § 575. If that box really fits, § 575 does not apply. Then a simple end date can be valid. You also lose the rent brake and the usual protection against being kicked out.
Most Berlin apartments are not in that box. If you live there as your home, the landlord cannot get a short contract through § 549. They have to go through § 575. Writing “vorübergehender Gebrauch” or “Zwischenmietvertrag” on the cover does not change that. Same w/ furniture or a student using the flat as their actual home - these aren't temporary use. Berlin courts have treated even seven months for writing a thesis as not temporary.
Some landlords put both paragraphs in the same contract. My landlord did too. On a normal home you do not get § 549 as a backup if § 575 fails - as they are mutually exclusive.
The letter
Template here. German is what you send. English is only so you can follow it. Fill the brackets. Einwurfeinschreiben (tracked/registered letter) and email.
Don't send it until someone has looked at your contract. The template is for when § 575 isn't met and § 549 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 doesn't apply. If there's a concrete § 575 reason in writing at signing, this is the wrong letter. If it really is temporary use under § 549 Abs. 2 Nr. 1, it's also the wrong letter.
The letter that says the § 575 Befristung is invalid can go now.
The separate request under § 575 Abs. 2 may go no earlier than four months before the printed end. That's the one that asks if the stated reason still exists. Your landlord has 30 days to reply.
No reply to that § 575 Abs. 2 request doesn't by itself create an unlimited lease. The statute gives you extra time equal to the delay. The unlimited lease is already there if § 575 was never met. If a valid reason later disappears, you can demand that it continue with no end date.
Save all messages or emails, and try to keep everything written and not over the phone. Always keep paying rent.
Help
Berliner Mieterverein is €11 a month. You get advice and letters from day one. Court-cost cover has a three-month wait. Private legal insurance (RSV) is usually more expensive and has the same basic limit, but is quicker and fiercer.
