Moving out of an apartment - A signed handover report is binding

The Local Court (Amtsgericht, AG) in Hanau ruled that the content of a condition report signed by both parties is generally binding (ruling of 11.4.2025, case reference: 32 C 37/24, cf. press release of 17.6.2025). Subsequent assertions that contradict the reported findings will be excluded. In the case in question, the landlord and the tenant had signed a handover report that showed that the apartment was in a flawless condition. The tenant then asserted her right to reduce her rental payments citing defects that had existed during her tenancy and that entitled her to a rent reduction. The aggrieved landlord asserted a claim in court for the payment of the outstanding rent.

The AG ordered the former tenant to pay the outstanding rent. She was not able to invoke defects in the apartment. The presence of such defects right up to the end of the tenancy, as she claimed, had already been refuted by the report that both parties had signed and from which it had emerged that the apartment was in a flawless condition. Such a report, as an agreement for both parties on the condition of the apartment, is binding anyway. Its purpose consists in recording the documented condition so that neither side is able to subsequently claim something else. The tenant’s objection that she had not included the defects in the report because she had feared that she would be held liable was unsuccessful. For declarations made in connection with legal transactions to be effective, the important thing is not the inner motivation, but rather solely the objective content of the declaration. Moreover, a reference to earlier defects is not a viable argument. If these had actually continued to exist then this would not have been consistent with the report so that, in this respect, its content would also not have had a binding effect.