A tenant is generally allowed to sublet parts of their apartment in order to reduce their rental costs. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe confirmed that this should be viewed as a legitimate interest and therefore permissible.
According to the Senate, it is also irrelevant whether the tenant uses the apartment as a main or secondary residence.
In the present case, a man continued to use a three-room apartment in Berlin for professional reasons after he had moved privately into a semi-detached house with his family. Some time later he asked the landlord of the Berlin apartment if he could sublet two of the three rooms for an indefinite period. The landlord initially allowed this for a limited time and later rejected the subletting altogether. The tenant then went to court and now won justice before the Federal Court of Justice.
The Berlin regional court must now renegotiate the case.