Looking for an informed opinion about section 123 of the BGB

Disclaimer, I am not a lawyer so don’t take this as legal advice as such.

If you want to spend the next 3 to 5 years dealing with a dragged out lawsuit that you still might lose, and pay both lawyer costs and then thousands in court costs, then this is your chance. But no, you sound like you don’t even want to pay the lawyers costs. Sorry but that isn’t likely a possibility.

Maybe you should inform yourself of Rechtsschutzversicherung,  which is a typical German thing: insurance to cover cost of such legal conflicts. Yet this isn’t cheap either.

And I can understand ones annoyance of being overcharged but I seriously doubt you have a case. I doubt the court would care how much the main renter pays is significant. What matters is what you get and what price you pay. If these are as promised then that is probably it.

How I understand your situation is say someone has a 3 bedroom apartment and actually pays 1500 Euros rent for it. He offers a room for rent in it and says; “I pay 3000 euros/month total, so I want 1000 for the 1 room”. One sees the room and agrees and then later finds out the real price. Sorry but they have no case.

Like if I go into a store. They offer a product at a given price and I buy it. Later I find out that the sales sign claiming special 50% off was just made up or the seller’s claim that he only has super small profit margin on it was untrue. The seller’s actual profit or cost is legally none of my concern, whether he lies about it or not. I could be outraged when I find out that other shops nearby were selling it for a lot cheaper. Still my mistake for not checking, even if the seller lied to me and said it was definitely the cheapest offer around.

He could claim that he rents it for 1000 euro/month but is giving you a deal and sub-renting it for a time for just 800. In reality he might be getting it for 200. Doesn’t matter. You would have zero legal recourse as far as I see. The bottom line is one sees a room and agrees on a price.

What is illegal would be if one showed you a room and then it turned out to be a completely different one then was being rented and significantly less valuable. So someone shows you room A and later they give you room B which is 20% smaller, then you would have a legal standing.

Where one could have a situation they could take to court would be if they made an agreement to split the monthly utilities and no fix price is agree on, just a percent, and the person misrepresents the costs. And such things happen. But again, the time trouble and cost of doing something about it usually outweighs the possible benefits. From first hand experience, the German civil judicial system is incredibly slow and often virtually incompetent. Present them a case as simple as 1 plus 1 and they will come up with the answer 7.

Detailed response! Did you see the part about "in case anyone here has experience in or with this particular bit of civil law"?

Or the other part, the actual question, i.e. "where can I get free legal consultation online in English about German civil law?" (I even summarized it as a TLDR at the top).

Thanks TomInStuttgart but it doesn't sound like you have experience with this branch of law personally either. You are, admittedly, a man after my own heart when it comes to thought experiments.

You've actually made a couple false claims as well, which could seriously mislead people searching the big bad webs if they end up here.

"He could claim that he rents it for 1000 euro/month but is giving you a deal and sub-renting it for a time for just 800. In reality he might be getting it for 200. Doesn’t matter. You would have zero legal recourse as far as I see."

Actually you would have recourse if the amount he claims he pays is in writing and part of the contract. Then it's considered more than just a "negligible motivator" (the legal term for something that is personally relevant to a deal but is not tangible to the declaration as it was recorded).

Maybe you should inform yourself of Rechtsschutzversicherung,  which is a typical German thing: insurance to cover cost of such legal conflicts. Yet this isn’t cheap either.

I am a member of the Berlin Mieterverein and have found the prices very fair - around 60€ or so for a full years membership and then you're covered when it comes to tenancy rights etc (they will front court costs too, provided they think you have a case and the incident occurs after 3 months of joining).

I'm looking for someone who has a specific experience akin to the one I have described, or for a link to a community of lawyers, like the websites linked in the original post. Mr. Tom your answer is mostly just nay-saying and by and large ignores the original post 

None the less, thanks for taking the time to answer.

Wow what arrogance! You want free legal advice but refuse to expect it doesn’t exist. Community of lawyers? Yeah, there are lots of lawyers offices, NONE are free. And yes, there are Mietervereins (renters-organizations) and the Verbraucherzentrale (Ombuds-office). Either might give limited assistance but not free specific legal advice, which is what you requested.

And I gave detailed examples based on logic and experience and you refuse to listen. I do have some experience in such matters and understand the logic behind and tried to explain. Yet it is in the context that I am not myself a lawyer and am obliged to say so.   

You seem not to have the ability to listen to anything but what you want to hear. The claims you make are dubious at best but suddenly you are the expert. Having something that will be considered insignificant, even if in writing is still insignificant.

Great then don’t bother to ask if you don’t want to hear an answer – just do it your way. If you find a lawyer that is confident that he can succeed with a suit then good luck to you but I see little basis for your position from what you have shared with us and like I mentioned before; even if one has a strong hand, the question is if it is worth the time, trouble and risk. Anyway, I am done with trying to help someone you likes to think they know everything better.

Tom and  GrayFix: Before this thread derails into personal insults, please strop replying to each other!

Although I have no direct experience with that paragraph of the BGB, I am 99% sure you have no case here.
I am however, an experienced (and tenant-friendly) landlord.
Unless the room is grossly overpriced compared to market levels (regardless of what the landlord tells you) - the Mieterverein can tell you if this is the case - you have no recourse other than moving elsewhere as soon as possible.
You can check this by posting your question on “frag-einen-anwalt.de” (for a fee, as free legal advice is actually disallowed in Germany!). The site is German, but occasionally someone posts in English (and gets replies, as most lawyers speak English as well).

beppi wrote:

Tom and  GrayFix: Before this thread derails into personal insults, please strop replying to each other!

Although I have no direct experience with that paragraph of the BGB, I am 99% sure you have no case here.
I am however, an experienced (and tenant-friendly) landlord.
Unless the room is grossly overpriced compared to market levels (regardless of what the landlord tells you) - the Mieterverein can tell you if this is the case - you have no recourse other than moving elsewhere as soon as possible.
You can check this by posting your question on “frag-einen-anwalt.de” (for a fee, as free legal advice is actually disallowed in Germany!). The site is German, but occasionally someone posts in English (and gets replies, as most lawyers speak English as well).

Thanks for confirming the basics of what I have written. Sorry if the tone didn't suit you but I found it appropriate to the situation and stand by everything I wrote.

beppi wrote:

...You can check this by posting your question on “frag-einen-anwalt.de” (for a fee, as free legal advice is actually disallowed in Germany!). The site is German, but occasionally someone posts in English (and gets replies, as most lawyers speak English as well).

Great, thanks for the link, I'll follow that up and if I find other relevant information I'll post it on this thread for future eye balls.

Nice to know there are still tenant-friendly landlords out there  haha

GrayedFox wrote:

Nice to know there are still tenant-friendly landlords out there  haha

I believe that most landlords are actually tenant-friendly, just as most tenants are good tenants. It's just that you only hear about the bad apples and horror stories. Nobody seems to post or write about good experiences.
But, after all, being friendly (to tenants or others) makes life easier, so why shouldn't I?