FAQ

Yes, Ger­man Apart­ment is a secure plat­form. We take secu­ri­ty very seri­ous­ly and have imple­ment­ed sev­er­al mea­sures to ensure your safe­ty and secu­ri­ty. We are here to help with any ques­tions and con­cerns you may have.

No. Sign­ing up on our home­page and view­ing the accom­mo­da­tions is free of charge.

You can find rooms, apart­ments and stu­dios for your desired city and rental peri­od in our search func­tion on our front page. You can check pic­tures, video and descrip­tions of each offered accom­mo­da­tion and make your choice accord­ing­ly.

You will find the “Book Now” but­ton in each accom­mo­da­tion list­ing. Click on that but­ton and pro­ceed with the reg­is­tra­tion on Stripe. Pay­ments must always be active­ly ini­ti­at­ed by you. At no time we will col­lect fees via direct deb­it. You can book with your cred­it card, bank account or apple pay.

Ger­man Apart­ment is a dig­i­tal book­ing plat­form and you can find hon­est pic­tures, videos, a Google map, and detailed descrip­tions of all our accom­mo­da­tions. This way, you can get a clear sense of each place —how it looks and where it’s locat­ed — before you make your deci­sion.

For your con­ve­nience, you can com­plete the entire book­ing process online, any­time and from any­where.

Some accom­mo­da­tions are cur­rent­ly occu­pied by oth­er ten­ants, mak­ing them tem­porar­i­ly inac­ces­si­ble for in-per­son vis­its. How­ev­er, our dig­i­tal book­ing fea­tures can save you a lot of time by brows­ing and book­ing online, elim­i­nat­ing the need for com­mut­ing and in-per­son view­ings. Enjoy the ease and effi­cien­cy of find­ing your per­fect place from the com­fort of your own home.

Yes, you can can­cel your book­ing before the start date of your stay. In that case how­ev­er the ser­vice charge and the first month rent can­not be refund­ed.

Yes, you can. You’re free to move in at any time you pre­fer, on or after the offi­cial start of the rental peri­od (e.g., if the rental peri­od begins on Jan­u­ary 1st, but you choose to move in on Jan­u­ary 15th).

How­ev­er, it’s impor­tant to note that if you decide to move in lat­er than the rental period’s offi­cial start date, you are still required to pay rent from the orig­i­nal start date. This is because the land­lord reserves the accom­mo­da­tion for you dur­ing that time.

In return you have the right to move in at any time of your wish on or after the begin­ning of you rental peri­od, for exam­ple in case you change your plans and arrive ear­li­er to Ger­many than expect­ed.

Yes, your mon­ey is safe when using Ger­man Apart­ment. We are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing a secure and reli­able ser­vice, and all pay­ments are processed using secure pay­ment meth­ods.

We work with Stripe, the pay­ment proces­sor of Ama­zon, google or BMW. Stripe uses the most up to date safe­ty fea­tures for online pay­ments, incl. mul­ti-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion (MFA) and two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion (2FA).

When you make the ini­tial pay­ment, it cov­ers both the ser­vice charge and your first month’s rent, giv­ing you a has­sle-free move-in expe­ri­ence.

From the sec­ond month onwards, you’ll only need to pay the stan­dard rent amount list­ed in your rental agree­ment. ​

Our ser­vice charge ensures high-qual­i­ty ser­vice and sup­port through­out your ten­an­cy. We care­ful­ly select and ver­i­fy all land­lords, pro­vide ful­ly fur­nished apart­ments, and facil­i­tate City Reg­is­tra­tion (“Anmel­dung”). With low rents and prox­im­i­ty to uni­ver­si­ties, you can secure your book­ing even from abroad.

No. Ger­man Apart­ment will nev­er col­lect fees via direct deb­it. Pay­ments always must be active­ly ini­ti­at­ed by you. You always have full con­troll of your pay­ments and book­ings.

No, there are no addi­tion­al fees asso­ci­at­ed with rent­ing an apart­ment through Ger­man Apart­ment. You only need to pay the agreed-upon rent amount.

Yes, your mon­ey will be refund­ed imme­di­ate­ly back to you in the uncer­tain case that the room is not avail­able.

When rent­ing an apart­ment or room, it’s com­mon to pay a secu­ri­ty deposit upfront, most­ly worth of 3 month of rent. This deposit (referred as “Kau­tion” in Ger­man) is refund­able and serves as a guar­an­tee against dam­age to the prop­er­ty or unpaid rent.

You get your deposit back typ­i­cal­ly with­in a few weeks, but most­ly with­in a few days, after you have moved out, pro­vid­ed the prop­er­ty is in the same con­di­tion as when you moved in, and you’ve met all the terms of the lease agree­ment.

Nor­mal­ly, the land­lord will ask you for the fol­low­ing doc­u­ments:

1. Pass­port or ID Card copy
2. Block Account
3. Admis­sion let­ter from your Ger­man Uni­ver­si­ty
4. Ger­man Visa / Res­i­dence Per­mit
5. Your cur­rent res­i­den­tial address
6. Your phone num­ber
7. Last three Income State­ments from you or your guar­an­tor (par­ents), sealed and signed by your employ­er, in Ger­man or Eng­lish lan­guage
8. If income state­ment is from your guar­an­tor: Pass­port Copy or ID Card of your guar­an­tor

You can black-out sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion

The land­lord usu­al­ly asks for proof of a month­ly income, where the rent should not exceed 40% of your or your guarantor’s (e.g., par­ents) net income after tax­es.

For exam­ple, if the rent is 800 EUR, the month­ly net income should be at least 2,000 EUR.

Either in Eng­lish or Ger­man. Oth­er lan­guages will require a cer­ti­fied trans­la­tion into Eng­lish or Ger­man. You can black-out sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion.

You can expect a response with­in a few days, typ­i­cal­ly between 1 to 2 weeks after sub­mit­ting all required doc­u­ments.

Ger­man Apart­ment is a dig­i­tal book­ing plat­form, and we ful­ly embrace paper­less solu­tions. Lease agree­ments will be signed and exchanged between you and the land­lord as PDF files via email.

Only a few land­lords require hard copies to be sent by post.

Yes. Once you receive the lease agree­ment, please sign it and return it to us via email. This is the only way to secure the accom­mo­da­tion. If you do not sign and return it prompt­ly, the land­lord may assume you are no longer inter­est­ed and maybe could offer the accom­mo­da­tion to anoth­er ten­ant.

Yes. If you have booked an entire apart­ment, then that’s sole­ly for your use only, incl. a pri­vate kitchen and pri­vate bath­room, only for you and locat­ed inside your apart­ment.

If you have booked a sin­gle room, you enjoy the pri­va­cy of your own room while hav­ing access to shared kitchen and bath­room facil­i­ties. Your sin­gle room can be locked. Sin­gle rooms will be clear­ly indi­cat­ed in the list­ing.

A good land­lord is regard­ed if he or she pro­vides you with a writ­ten rental con­tract, a writ­ten land­lord con­fir­ma­tion (please also check the sec­tion “Police Reg­is­tra­tion, Impor­tant num­bers, Con­sular Ser­vice”) and only excepts non-cash pay­ments. Non-cash pay­ments ensure that all pay­ments are on record.

At Ger­man Apart­ment we make sure that all land­lords full­fil these cri­te­ria.

The accom­mo­da­tions are con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed close to Uni­ver­si­ties, as well as close to pub­lic trans­port, shops, restau­rants, med­ical and oth­er facil­i­ties need­ed in dai­ly life.

Most of the Berlin apart­ments are locat­ed with­in the inner cir­cle (“S‑Bahn Ring”), such a Char­lot­ten­burg, Mitte, Pren­zlauer Berg, Friedrichshain or Neuköln. How­ev­er, we also have beau­ti­ful apart­ments in the out­er dis­tricts (e.g. Span­dau or Tem­pel­hof), and even in Pots­dam.

A third-par­ty lia­bil­i­ty insur­ance is a valu­able form of pro­tec­tion for you. It offers finan­cial secu­ri­ty and ensures that poten­tial lia­bil­i­ties are cov­ered in the event of acci­dents or dam­age dur­ing your rental peri­od, for exam­ple if you cause unin­tend­ed dam­age to the accom­mo­da­tion or to the oth­er ten­ants. The pro­tec­tion also cov­ers if you cause unin­tend­ed dam­age to oth­er prop­er­ties or per­sons out­side your accom­mo­da­tion.

The Ger­man GEZ radio tax, also known as the “Rund­funkbeitrag” (broad­cast­ing fee), is a com­pul­so­ry fee that all res­i­dents in Ger­many are required to pay to sup­port pub­lic broad­cast­ing. This fee is not lim­it­ed to radio but also cov­ers tele­vi­sion and oth­er pub­lic broad­cast­ing ser­vices, incl. Com­put­er, Tablet, Smart­phone and oth­er inter­net-con­nect­ed devices. Nor­mal­ly, GEZ has to be born by the ten­ant and is not includ­ed in the rent.

Yes, in all accom­mo­da­tions on our plat­tform City Reg­is­tra­tion or “Anmel­dung” is pos­si­ble. Upon check-in you will receive a land­lord con­fir­ma­tion (“Woh­nungs­ge­berbescheini­gung”) and the rental con­tract. With both doc­u­ments you can do the city reg­is­tra­tion. At Ger­man Apart­ment we keep strict­ly check­ing that all land­lords com­ply with this rule.

Once every­thing is final­ized (the lease agree­ment, your flight tick­ets, etc.), you can sched­ule an appoint­ment with the building’s care­tak­er for the key han­dover by e‑mail or phone. This should be arranged about two weeks before your desired check-in date.

Key han­dovers are typ­i­cal­ly avail­able Mon­day to Fri­day, between 9 AM and 4 PM, exclud­ing week­ends and pub­lic hol­i­days.

Please make sure not to final­ize any trav­el plans until both you and the land­lord have signed the lease agree­ment.

In case of an emer­gency:

• Police: 110
  
• Fire Fight­ers: 112
• Ambu­lance (life crit­i­cal sit­u­a­tions): 112

Please con­tact the Embassy or Con­sulate Gen­er­al of your home­coun­try in Ger­many, in case you require con­sulate assis­stance, for exam­ple in case of lost Pass­port. Most for­eign Embassies are locat­ed in Berlin, while Munich, Ham­burg, Frank­furt, Stuttgart and Dues­sel­dorf host for­eign Con­sulates.

For the well-being of every­body smok­ing and bring­ing your pets into the apart­ment is not allowed. The apart­ment is for long term and res­i­den­cy use only.

Ger­man neigh­bors appre­ci­ate silence dur­ing night­time and on the week­end. Please kind­ly avoid noisy activ­i­ties in between 10 pm – 6 a.m., as well as on Sun­day.