Schönheitsreparaturen: Which German Cosmetic Repair Clauses Are Actually Void

Painting, wallpapering and the rest of the cosmetic upkeep of a German rental, Schönheitsreparaturen, are usually pushed onto the tenant by the lease. Most leases do exactly that, and for a long time most tenants simply paid up when they moved out. A great many of those clauses are void, and the tenant ends up owing nothing, or owing only half of what the landlord asked for.

Two Bundesgerichtshof rulings, one from 2015 and one from 2020, are the spine of the current law. This page works through both, plus the older rule on rigid renovation schedules, what counts as a Schönheitsreparatur at all, and what a valid clause actually has to look like. Every clause still turns on its own exact wording, so read this as the framework for checking a specific lease rather than a verdict on every lease.

Information last verified on 20 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

What Schönheitsreparaturen actually covers

Before asking whether a clause is valid, it helps to know what it is even allowed to cover. Schönheitsreparaturen is a defined, narrower category than the everyday German word for renovation might suggest.

§ 28 Abs. 4 of the Zweite Berechnungsverordnung (II. BV), the ordinance that supplies the legal definition used across German tenancy law, lists exactly what counts: wallpapering, painting or whitewashing the walls and ceilings, painting the floors, painting the radiators including the heating pipes, and painting the interior doors along with the inside faces of windows and outer doors. That is the full list.

What falls outside it matters just as much. Structural repairs, replacing flooring rather than painting it, fixing plumbing or electrical fittings, and repairing the building fabric itself are not Schönheitsreparaturen at all, however a lease describes them. A clause that folds structural maintenance into the tenant's cosmetic repair obligation is reaching beyond what that category is legally allowed to mean, separately from any question about how the clause is worded.

The 2015 ruling: an unrenovated handover

BGH VIII ZR 185/14, decided on 18 March 2015, addressed the most common real-world problem with these clauses. Many tenants move into a flat that was never properly renovated by the previous occupant or the landlord, faded paint, marked walls, and all, and the lease still hands the tenant full responsibility for keeping the place in a decorated condition going forward.

The Bundesgerichtshof held that a standard lease clause transferring the cosmetic repair obligation to the tenant is void where the tenant received the dwelling unrenovated, unless the tenant received appropriate compensation for taking on a flat in that condition. Without that compensation, the clause puts the tenant in the position of eventually having to erase wear that existed before the tenancy even started, which the court found to be an unreasonable disadvantage under the general fairness control that applies to standard contract terms.

Worked example

A tenant signs a lease for a flat with visibly worn, unpainted walls left over from the previous tenant. Nothing in the lease compensates the incoming tenant for accepting that condition, a reduced first month's rent, a contribution toward paint, or anything similar. The lease nonetheless states that the tenant must repaint the flat on moving out.

Under VIII ZR 185/14, that clause is void. The tenant does not automatically owe a full repaint on departure simply because the lease says so, precisely because the flat was never handed over in a decorated state to begin with and nothing was given in exchange for that.

The 2020 ruling: what happens once the clause is void

A void clause does not mean the tenant simply keeps living with a flat that genuinely needs work and owes nothing at all. BGH VIII ZR 163/18, decided on 8 July 2020, filled in what happens next.

Where the cosmetic repair clause is void for the reason above, and the decorative condition of the flat has deteriorated significantly since the tenant moved in, the tenant can require the landlord to carry out the necessary work. But the court held that the tenant generally has to contribute to the cost, typically around half, because letting the tenant have the work done entirely at the landlord's expense would leave the tenant better off than under a valid clause, where the tenant would have carried some share of the burden themselves. The exact split depends on the facts of the case, but an even split is the court's usual reference point.

Put together, the two rulings mean a tenant who moved into an unrenovated flat is not simply free of any responsibility. The tenant is protected from a lease clause that would have made the tenant pay for everything, including wear that predates the tenancy, and is instead left contributing a fair share once the landlord is asked to actually do the work.

Rigid renovation schedules are void on their own, separately

Even where a flat was handed over freshly renovated, a different defect can sink the clause. Many leases specify a fixed renovation timetable, repaint the kitchen and bathroom every three years, other rooms every five, regardless of how the room actually looks.

The Bundesgerichtshof has treated a genuinely rigid schedule like this as void under § 307 BGB since a 2004 ruling, because it imposes an obligation to redecorate on a fixed calendar rather than on the room's real condition, and that is an unreasonable disadvantage to the tenant under the transparency and fairness requirements that apply to standard lease terms. A schedule can survive only if it is drafted as a non-binding guideline, commonly signalled by words like generally or as a rule, that a tenant in a well kept room can plainly depart from. A schedule with no such softening language, stated as a flat obligation, is the kind that fails.

The Quotenabgeltungsklausel is void as a standard term

A related clause type asks a departing tenant, who has not yet reached the point where a full repaint is due under the lease's own schedule, to pay a proportional share of the estimated cost anyway, calculated against how much of the renovation cycle has elapsed. This is the Quotenabgeltungsklausel.

The same 2015 decision that addressed the unrenovated-handover problem confirmed that a formular Quotenabgeltungsklausel, one used as a standard pre-drafted lease term rather than individually negotiated, is void. The court's reasoning centred on the clause asking a tenant to agree, at the point of signing the lease, to a future cost that cannot actually be known in advance, an unreasonable degree of uncertainty for a standard term to impose.

What a valid clause looks like

Putting the rulings together, a cosmetic repair clause has a real chance of being enforceable where all of the following hold. The flat was genuinely handed over freshly renovated, or the tenant received real compensation for accepting it unrenovated. Any timetable in the clause is phrased as a flexible guideline rather than a fixed deadline, so it clearly bends to the room's actual condition. The clause only covers what § 28 Abs. 4 II. BV actually defines as a Schönheitsreparatur, not structural work dressed up in that language. And there is no Quotenabgeltungsklausel forcing a departing tenant to pay a proportional estimate for cycles they have not reached.

A lease missing any one of these is a strong candidate for a void clause on that specific point, though the exact wording always has to be checked rather than assumed.

What to actually do with a disputed clause

A tenant who suspects a clause is void has a practical starting point rather than an abstract legal question. Find the move-in protocol or any photographs from the start of the tenancy, since they are usually what settles whether the flat was genuinely renovated at handover. Read the exact wording of the renovation timetable, since a single softening word can be the difference between a guideline and a fixed schedule. And separate what the lease calls a Schönheitsreparatur from what § 28 Abs. 4 II. BV actually defines, since leases regularly reach beyond that narrower list.

Where a landlord is withholding part of the security deposit for cosmetic work under a clause that looks defective on these grounds, that is the point to raise the clause's validity, rather than assuming the deduction is automatically justified because the lease mentions Schönheitsreparaturen at all.

What this does not change

None of this touches ordinary damage liability. A tenant who genuinely damages the dwelling, holes beyond what hanging pictures would cause, burns, or broken fixtures, still owes for repairing that under the general rules governing the condition the rented property has to be returned in. What these rulings strike down is specifically the standard-form transfer of routine cosmetic upkeep onto the tenant where the clause itself is defective, not liability for actual damage.

For the separate rules on the security deposit a landlord often draws on to cover these disputes, see security deposit. For notice periods and the process of ending a tenancy, see ending a tenancy. For the broader picture of German tenancy law, see German tenancy law.

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