Rent Review Office Berlin (Mietpreisprüfstelle Berlin)

What does the rent review office do?

The Rent Review Office is a low-threshold advisory service offered by the state of Berlin for individual initial consultation in cases of suspected excessive rent. The rent review office is open for all tenant households in Berlin. The rent review office will support you in checking your rent and advise you on further steps to pursue your rights in the event of excessive rent.

The consultations are carried out on behalf of SiWo (Sicheres Wohnen – Beteiligung, Beratung, Prüfung Anstalt öffentlichen Rechts) by Mieterberatung Prenzlauer Berg and asum and are free of charge. You can contact the rent review office on weekdays by phone or email with your concerns or to arrange an appointment. The face-to-face consultation hours take place at three central locations in Berlin, and there are also telephone consultation hours.

You can find the contact details and office hours here.

What does the rent cap mean?

The rent cap applies throughout Berlin due to the tight housing market situation. The rent at the start of a new tenancy must therefore not exceed the local comparative rent (“Ortsübliche Vergleichsmiete”) by more than 10%. If the rent is higher than this, the landlord can generally be reprimanded by you (“Rüge erheben”) and asked to reduce and repay the rent. The rent cap does not always apply; there are exceptions, for example, in the case of first-time use and letting after extensive modernization (worth one-third of the value of an equivalent newly built apartment) or newly constructed living space (first use after 1.10.2014). You should therefore seek advice on your individual rent.

The rent review office will advise you on the basis of your information and help you to determine your local comparative rent.

What happens if the rent is particularly high?

If the rent is exceeded by more than 20 %, this is referred to as “rent exaggeration (“Mietpreisüberhöhung”)”, colloquially known as rent usury, in accordance with Section 5 of the Economic Crimes Act (§ 5WiStrG) This is an administrative offense and can lead to a high fine for the landlord if he has taken advantage of a deficiency situation. In addition, at the request of the aggrieved party, the landlord may be ordered to reimburse the excess proceeds.

In Berlin, the district authorities are responsible for further prosecution in cases of suspected violations of Section 5 WiStG.

The rent review office will advise you on the requirements for further action and your role in administrative offense proceedings. Upon request, the review result (“Prüfergebnis”) will be forwarded by the rent review office to the relevant administrative authority (Wohnungsamt).

What information is important for checking your rent?

To determine the exact permissible amount of rent the rent review office needs information from you about the location of the apartment, details from the rental agreement such as the size of the apartment and individual rooms, the monthly basic rent (“Nettomiete”) and the date you moved in, as well as features of the apartment, bathroom and kitchen, building and living environment.

Get in touch with us, even if you don’t have all the information yet. We clear it up together.

If you use the rent index calculator in advance to determine the standard local comparative rent, please have the results PDF ready for the consultation!

Use the Berlin rent index query service to find out the amount of the local comparative rent.

Berlin rent index – online query / Senate Department for urban development in Berlin

You can find more rent indices here!

If you moved into the apartment before August 2023, you can find more rent tables here:

Archive – Rent index 2017 to 2023

Accessibility and contact details of the rent review office:

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. and Tuesdays and Thursdays between 2 and 5 pm under the telephone number 030-213 007 302.

Please call to make an appointment. When you make an appointment, we will discuss which documents are required for the consultation.

You can send appointment requests by e-mail to [e-mail]. Please include a telephone number for any queries.

Attendance times and locations for consultation (appointment required)

• Tuesday between 3 and 6 p.m. in the rooms of the tenant advisory service Prenzlauer Berg, Schönhauser Allee 59, 10437 Berlin
• Thursday between 2 and 5 p.m. on the premises of asum GmbH, Thaerstr. 30D, 10249 Berlin
• Thursday between 10 and 13 p.m. in „Haus am Mierendorffplatz“, Mierendorffplatz 19/ corner Lise-Meitner-Straße, 10589 Berlin

For general questions please use the e-mail address [e-mail].