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 Subject: Problems with housing agency or landlord?... 06/12/10, 15:15 
Akki
Newbie
Joined: 10/05/09, 19:32
Posts: 3
Location
Hi
we would like to collect stories around problens with housing and we consider sending a petition to the ministry that handles expat affairs regarding the housing situation in Copenhagen.

If you have rented an acco in past in Cph & have felt treated unjust please tell us in brief the following:

Length of stay:
Requested amount in Kr:
Description of problem:

Thank you.

here is what happened with us in short

Length of stay:36 months
Requested amount in Kr: more than 30,000.00
Description of problem:
we rented top floor of a house. Heating for 3 years was poor, once repair person came but nothing was fixed, we didnt recevie any bills till the time we had to move out, bills were fabricated using wrong data and asked us to pay 50% more than acconto & agency wilfully agreed with landlord to send those bills to us & expected us to pay when the landlord accepts that heating was not efficient and when agency knows about the heating problem. There was no spearate electricity meter for our area of the house. Eventually the meter was installed without telling us what wires were connected. we have been paying more than 1100 Kr a month for a 100 sqm area used by only 2 people.Repeated reminders to agency has not resulted in anything.
Landlord never let us know when he was about to enter the house and would do so on his own will without involving agency. In the end when we moved out they forced us to do handover "virtually". We could not be presnet on the date but they forced us anyways. They sent us a 15,000 Kr bill for cleaning which could be done in 1000-3000 Kr.

There is absolutely no way we can do anything about this unless we spend huge time and money into getting lawyers engaged etc. I have heard many many similar stories from all the expats in my office & other places.

Please let us know your experiences.

thanks
Last edited on: 06/12/10, 15:15 by admin.
 Subject: Re:Problems with housing agency or landlord?... 01/12/10, 12:15 
Dagmar
Administrator
Joined: 07/03/09, 18:16
Posts: 81
Location
 
Today there was a program P4 radio that also touched the topic of
foreigners having problems with housing. In th article they even mention a Dane that has returned to Denmark after a long absence and due to the problems with finding housing she considers leaving again.
 Subject: Re:Problems with housing agency or landlord?... 14/12/10, 09:55 
Tanel
Newbie
Joined: 14/12/10, 10:24
Posts: 1
Location
Length of stay: in Copenhagen since April 2010
Requested amount in Kr: 5200 DKK
Description of problem: We moved to Copenhagen in April 2010 and rented a private apartment in Rødovre. The neighborhood is nice and the apartment itself is ok too, but it in an old two-storied house and is not renovated. The official size of it is a bit over 52 m2. The landlord charged an amount of 5200 DKK for the rent only - additionally we had to pay for heating, electricity, water, cable TV and internet, which all summed up to about 6600 DKK monthly. In August 2010 begun we wonder, if we are paying too much and went to consult with an organization called LLO. To make the long story short, we ended up with 45% decrease of the rent (now the rent is about 2850 DKK plus all the extras) and getting back the overpaid money. The landlord tried to confuse us by sending us several letters through his lawyer, but we fought back. The whole process took 4 months.

So our suggestion is: if you have problems with your landlord, then go and consult with LLO. They charge you for their services, but it is worth it.

Cheers!
 Subject: Re:Problems with housing agency or landlord?... 15/12/10, 22:13 
renilde
Newbie
Joined: 29/11/09, 15:02
Posts: 1
Location
We arrived in January 2010. We rented a house in Rungsted Kyst. It all looked nice and pleasant, but it went all wrong once we started living in it. Nothing worked properly because mainly the landlord was a cheapskate who had installed most of the kitchen himself, resulting in an oven that a exploded, a hood that did not work and a stove that worked on half capacity. The kitchen looked new, but that was another illusion: it were old cupboards with only new doors. All the other renovation work had been done by illegal immigrants from Lithuania or by himself, but our contract stipulated that we had to employ on Danish companies if we anted to do some work in the house. We tried to solve a few problems here and there ourselves, but every week another issue occured, like a leak in the basement from the kitchen the landlord flatly refused to have repaired. His standard answer to any repair was (since he had lived there himself before): it is good enough for me, it is good enough for you, or: it worked before, so you broke it, you mend it.The list of what was wrong is endless, no space to publish it here.

After long discussions with the real estate agent who had put the house on the market, and the relocation agent, a meeting was conducted in the presence of a lawyer. The rude and bullying landlord tried a few times shut up the lawyer without success. According to danish law, one can not install electric appliances themselves, but even if it is blatantly clear that this is the case no one does anything about it. The estimate was he should invest about 100.000 kr to bring the house up to standard (rent was 25.000). We propose him to leave the house instead which he reluctantly accepted after long discussions (!).. We moved out after 6 months of misery.

The problem with the landlords here is that they see expats as ideal victims: we don't speak Danish, we don't know who to turn to. Relocation agents who should defend our rights, don't do so because they want to be 'good friends' with real estate agents, since there are very few houses on the market. Real estate agents work for the owner and he pays their bill. There are no independent agents handling the rental contracts, such as is the case in other countries. We own a house in another country, it is rented out. This is handled by an agent, the persons living in our house just contacts this agent in case of problems. The agent sends immediately someone to repair. The bill is paid by us or by the tenant depending on the law, there are no needless discussions and emotions involved. Here you have to call the landlord himself who gets irritated, does not know or simply does not respects the law, answers in rude manners and flatly refuses to do something about the problem. Even the relocation agent does not know the law and if it is a repair to be paid by the tenant or by the owner, it is just extremely irritating. The tenant can only try to stay calm and friendly, and repeat the issue until the landlord gives in (or maybe not). and the tenant can pay for the repair himself. As expats we pay steep prices, in exchange of a nice house in perfect state, but that is just an illusion in Denmark. I heard so many complaints here from expats, nothing goes smoothly, tenants need to nag and nag before something is done or replaced. We lived as expats in 6 different countries and talking to a landlord was nowhere as hard as here. Another reason for irritation besides the way we feel treated here as foreigners, as the survey shows.
Last edited on: 15/12/10, 22:13 by admin.
 Subject: Re:Problems with housing agency or landlord?... 25/12/10, 16:46 
Galina
Newbie
Joined: 18/04/09, 20:41
Posts: 3
Location
Compare to others we had less amount of problems. Our lendlord was replaying very slow as result we never knew how long we had to live with broken stuff. We also had heating included in our rent (500 kronas per month) but apparently our landlord was not transfering money to the heating company on time. As result after we left he received a huge bill and he deducted the money from our deposit. Also he returned the deposit 2 month later then he had to.
 Subject: Re:Problems with housing agency or landlord?... 07/11/11, 13:17 
ClauGzzE
Newbie
Joined: 21/07/11, 19:24
Posts: 2
Location
Rent: 14,750 DKK / Month
Length of Stay: 2 years

He had the worst landlord experience in our adult lives. Not only we had multiple issues with the apartment, but the landlord kept a big part of our deposit because of "administrative" issues. He waited until we were overseas to send the relocation company a message that he would keep 13,000 DKK instead of the 4,000 DKK he was entitled to. None of this was detailed in the contract, but now that my husband and I are back in the US, we are unable to dispute any of the money he is keeping. Its not like we are going to hire a lawyer and deal with this from here.

During our stay, we had to deal with multiple issues with the apartment and on every single one of them, he delayed fixing the issues due to the high cost.

I hope that by posting this, people could avoid what we went through.
Last edited on: 07/11/11, 13:17 by admin.
 Subject: Complaining to the rent tribunal and get reimbursed for excess rent... 21/07/11, 19:44 
ClauGzzE
Newbie
Joined: 21/07/11, 19:24
Posts: 2
Location
I wish we had known about this before our problems with the landlord. I hope this helps foreigners in Denmark. There are a lot of landlords taking advantage because they know, foreigners, especially expats, leave after they complete their work assignment.

Please send this to as many people as possible. This is all legal and its all in this website.

http://ism.ku.dk/housing/

It is not uncommon that foreign tenants pay as much as the above rent of 9500 + utilities for 68m2. A flat of 68m2 should cost no more than 4550 + utilities.

If you are paying too much, you can complain to the Rent Tribunal (Huslejenævnet) in the municipality where you live. You can complain both about a normal lease, as well as rooms/flats rented on subleases. The rent cannot be increased on the initiative by the Rent Tribunal.

In 2010, it costs 131 DKK to submit a complaint to the Rent Tribunal. It costs 262 DKK to complain of two issues. Seven of ten people who complain have their rent lowered. If you complain within the first year, you can have excessive rent which you have already paid returned. If you complain after the first year, you can have the future rent lowered. Your landlord cannot evict you because you have complained of the rent.

You should submit a written complaint with a letter stating briefly what you are complaining of. You must also include the lease, and any other documents relevant to your complaint. You will subsequently receive information about how to pay the fee. The Rent Tribunal accepts that you write in English, however, they respond in Danish.

If you live in the municipality of Copenhagen you can submit a scanned copy to borgerservice@kk.dk or mail it to Huslejenævnet, Københavns Kommune, Rådhuset, 1599 København V.

If you live in the municipality of Frederiksberg, you must email it to lejeret@frederiksberg.dk or mail it to Huslejenævnet, Fredriksberg Kommune, Rådhuset, 2000 Frederiksberg. Telephone: 38214237/38214238.

You can also complain about the amount of the deposit and the prepaid rent, if they exceed 6 months rent, as well as a variety of other unreasonable demands made by the landlord.
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