Apartment - Handover
So, some background. I started looking for an apartment to buy in March of 2020 - just in time for the pandemic to hit right in the middle of my search. After some research, mostly Immowelt and Immoscout24, I found a place that seemed the right size, and what seemed like a good value for the price. I put in an offer, wich was accepted, and the deal closed right around my birthday, at then end of June.
The plan was, and had always been, for me to buy a place to move into. The place I bought had a tennant who had lived there for ~10 years, and was living on social insurance payments. Talking with him, he seemed OK with moving out, but the social insurance system didn't allow him to move out. Basically, the social insurance system guaranteed a roof over his head, but he didn't get a lot of choice which roof it was, and couldn't move just because he felt like it. The net of this was that in order for me to move in, I had to formally evict him.
Given Germany's strong tenant protection laws and the law's bias towards protecting the poor, evicting was a fraught project. From talking to my lawyer, The law would let me move in eventually, but the tenant could fight it relatively hard, especially given the specifics of this tenant.
After the apartment was fully in my name (~October, 4 months after the purchase contract was signed) I was able to send an eviction notice, with the (fairly typical) 9 month notice peroid. As mentioned earlier, the tenant was OK moving out; as soon as he received the eviction, he started looking for other places. Once he found another place, we agreed on a payment for him to move out earlier - targeting March 15th. One important thing to note - although the tenant appeared to be working towards finding a new place and moving out, the law gave him very wide latitude to change his mind up until he was out of the apartent So, I was a little tense coming up to the move-out date, hoping that thing would go smoothly.
On March 1st, the tenant was ready (early!), and we handed over the key. It was a huge relief for me. I was glad to have my own space.
However, soon that one source of stress / tension was traded for another as I prepped for renovations and moving.
