Federal Court of Justice
Landlords are allowed to bill cable TV – until the change
The entrance area to the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe. Photo: Uli Deck / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Tenants have to pay the costs for a cable connection, if this is regulated in the rental agreement. The BGH does not shake the current legal situation. But the topic was soon settled.
Tenants will have to put up with the fact that landlords will tie them to a paid broadband cable connection for the entire duration of the tenancy – and bill the costs.
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe ruled on Thursday that this does not violate the Telecommunications Act. However, the effects of the ruling are short-lived: On December 1, 2021, a law will come into force that forbids this practice. There is still a transition period until the end of June 2024. After that, however, all tenants will have freedom of choice – and the so-called utility cost privilege is finally a thing of the past.
TV and radio programs are transmitted via a broadband cable connection. However, it can also be used for other services such as telephone calls and the Internet.
The competition center was of the opinion that the billing of operating costs violated the law so far. If tenants pay for a connection that they may not use or do not want to use, providers of alternative transmission channels such as streaming services are also at a disadvantage. The plaintiff relied on a paragraph in the Telecommunications Act, according to which a contract “between a consumer and a provider of publicly available telecommunications services” may not have a minimum term of 24 months. In addition, it must be possible to conclude a contract for a maximum of 12 months.
Tenants have to wait for the regulations to be implemented
The first civil senate at the BGH ruled, however, that the rental contracts of the defendant Vivawest from Gelsenkirchen did not include a minimum term of more than 24 months. The company also does not forbid the conclusion of contracts with a term of no more than one year. “The rental contracts are rather concluded by the defendant for an indefinite period of time and can be terminated by the tenants – in accordance with the statutory regulation (…) – up to the third working day of a calendar month to the end of the next but one calendar month.” The judges rejected the plaintiff’s appeal. The lower courts had also ruled in favor of Vivawest, which rents more than 120,000 apartments.
Affected consumers will therefore have to wait for the new regulations to be implemented. “The compulsory allocation of TV costs is a relic from the early days of private cable television and is no longer up-to-date,” commented Jens-Uwe Theumer from the Verivox comparison portal. “HD television has long been possible in other ways for less than 10 euros a month. If tenants can soon decide for themselves about their provider, the formerly rigid silo thinking between TV and streaming will continue to break up. “