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Kleinreparaturklausel: Minor Repair Costs in German Leases

Last reviewed: 15 September 2026 · Reading time approx. 8 minutes

A dripping tap, a jammed window handle, a broken light switch: amounts too small to notice individually, and a four-figure annual item once you own ten flats. The Kleinreparaturklausel — the minor-repair clause — is meant to push them onto the tenant. It is also the most frequently mis-drafted clause in German residential leases, and when it fails it costs the landlord more than it could ever have saved. This article separates what German law actually says from the figures that have been circulating in guidebooks for decades.

The starting point: repairs are the landlord's job

The statute allocates the roles unambiguously. The landlord must hand over the property in a condition fit for contractual use “und sie während der Mietzeit in diesem Zustand zu erhalten” — and keep it in that condition for the duration of the lease (§ 535 Abs. 1 Satz 2 BGB, the German Civil Code). This is not an ancillary duty but the landlord's principal obligation: he owes not the flat but the working flat, throughout the term. Every repair — from the roof truss to the shower fitting — falls to him first, regardless of who wore the item out.

A minor-repair clause is an attempt to depart from that statutory default, which is exactly why it is policed so strictly. Standard-form terms are invalid if they disadvantage the other party unreasonably contrary to the requirement of good faith (§ 307 Abs. 1 Satz 1 BGB), and an unreasonable disadvantage “is in case of doubt to be assumed” where a provision is incompatible with the essential principles of the statutory rule from which it departs (§ 307 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 BGB). The essential principle departed from here is § 535 Abs. 1 Satz 2 BGB. The clause is therefore measured against the very rule it sets out to reverse — which is why there is so little room in it.

What “minor maintenance” means — the only official catalogue

The Civil Code does not define the minor repair at all. It is defined in one place that most guidebooks only paraphrase: § 28 Abs. 3 Satz 2 of the Second Calculation Regulation (Zweite Berechnungsverordnung, II. BV). Minor maintenance there covers “nur das Beheben kleiner Schäden an den Installationsgegenständen für Elektrizität, Wasser und Gas, den Heiz- und Kocheinrichtungen, den Fenster- und Türverschlüssen sowie den Verschlußvorrichtungen von Fensterläden” — only the repair of minor damage to the installation fittings for electricity, water and gas, to heating and cooking equipment, to window and door fastenings and to the closing mechanisms of shutters.

Two words carry that sentence. “Only” makes the list exhaustive. And “installation fittings” means the parts the tenant handles daily — not the pipe inside the wall he cannot reach. A dripping tap is minor maintenance; the leaking riser behind it is not, even if the invoice is smaller. The boundary runs along the object, not the amount.

Covered by the catalogueNot covered
Tap, shower head, angle valve, cistern internalsPipework, risers, drains inside the wall
Light switch, socket, doorbell buttonWiring, consumer unit, meter cabinet
Radiator thermostat valve, hob control knobBoiler, combi heater, the radiator itself
Window and door handles, locks, shutter strapsWindow frames, glazing, shutter housing
The most common drafting error: the II. BV speaks of the tenant bearing “die Kosten für kleine Instandhaltungen” — the costs of minor maintenance, not the carrying out of it. A clause obliging the tenant to have repairs done shifts not merely money but the maintenance duty itself, which § 535 Abs. 1 Satz 2 BGB assigns to the landlord. A clause confined to bearing the cost stands up far better to review under § 307 BGB.

The figures everyone quotes — and the one that is in a statute

Two numbers circulate in guidebooks and contract templates: a cap per individual repair and an annual ceiling, usually expressed as a share of the annual net rent. Both are sensible and both belong in any clause. But neither figure appears in any statute. They come from the case law of the local, regional and higher regional courts, partly from the 1980s and 1990s, and they differ from court to court. We deliberately name no specific amount as a “permissible limit” here, because none of them can be evidenced against a primary source we have read in full — and a cap that turns out to be too high brings down the entire clause under the all-or-nothing logic of German standard-terms control, not merely the excess above it.

There is nevertheless exactly one statutory figure on this subject, and it works well as an orientation. For price-controlled housing — the regulation applies under § 1 Abs. 1 II. BV to publicly subsidised housing and housing treated as equivalent, not to the open market — § 28 Abs. 3 Satz 1 II. BV provides that the maintenance costs which may be brought into account are reduced by 1,05 € per square metre of living space per year where the tenant bears the cost of minor maintenance. That is the value the legislator itself places on this shift of burden. For a 70 m² flat it amounts to 73,50 € a year — a considerably more sober order of magnitude than the annual ceilings found in many templates.

The same provision doubles as a yardstick for your own maintenance budget. § 28 Abs. 2 II. BV allows at most 7,10 € per square metre of living space per year while the property has been ready for occupancy for less than 22 years, 9 € from 22 years, and 11,50 € from 32 years. The ladder makes the underlying point: the age of the building drives the repair bill, not the lease. How to turn that into a workable reserve is covered in our article on calculating the maintenance reserve.

What happens when the clause is invalid

This is where the real economic leverage sits, and it is routinely underestimated. An invalid standard term is not trimmed back to the largest permissible version. It drops out entirely: where terms have not become part of the contract or are invalid, “richtet sich der Inhalt des Vertrags nach den gesetzlichen Vorschriften” — the content of the contract follows the statutory provisions (§ 306 Abs. 2 BGB) — while the contract otherwise remains effective (§ 306 Abs. 1 BGB). § 535 Abs. 1 Satz 2 BGB therefore takes the clause's place, and the landlord pays for every repair, however small.

Worse, he cannot recoup the loss through a rent increase. The Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) has decided precisely that question (see below). A landlord who uses an over-ambitious clause ends up worse off than one who never used a clause at all: he carries the costs and, on top of that, the risk of having to repay amounts already collected.

Tax: minor repairs reduce the rental result immediately

If the repair stays with the landlord, that is no disaster in tax terms — it is the normal case. Expenditure on maintaining a let flat is a deductible expense; the statute defines these as “Aufwendungen zur Erwerbung, Sicherung und Erhaltung der Einnahmen”, expenses incurred to acquire, secure and maintain income (§ 9 Abs. 1 Satz 1 EStG), and they reduce the income from letting in full in the year of payment. A tenant who pays a minor repair himself cannot deduct it, and neither can the landlord: the amount appears in no Anlage V (the German rental income tax schedule). One thing is worth watching if the small invoices pile up: within the first three years after purchase, repair work can turn into acquisition-related production costs that may only be written off over time — the detail is in our article on acquisition-related production costs. And because minor repairs can never be passed on through the service charge settlement, they belong in the same bucket as the other non-apportionable costs: they hit your yield directly.

What the courts have decided

On the minor-repair clause itself the harvest from the highest courts is thin — the leading decisions on permissible amounts predate the year 2000 and are not available in full text through the Federal Court of Justice's decision database, so we do not cite them. The two judgments below answer the question that weighs most in economic terms instead: what applies once the clause has failed?

BGH, judgment of 9 July 2008 – VIII ZR 83/07

A landlord had claimed surcharges on the local reference rent in rent-increase proceedings because her decoration clause and her minor-repair clause were both invalid and she now had to pay for the work herself. The senate refused and drew the consequence plainly: “Das bedeutet hier, dass die Klägerin als Vermieterin mangels wirksamer Abwälzung der Schönheits- und Kleinreparaturen gemäß § 535 Abs. 1 Satz 2 BGB die Instandhaltungslast in vollem Umfang zu tragen hat” — lacking an effective transfer of decoration and minor repairs, the landlord bears the full maintenance burden. The risk of an invalid clause lies with the party that supplied the standard form. For owners this means an over-ambitious clause cannot be repaired after the fact, neither by a rent increase nor through frustration of contract.

BGH, judgment of 8 July 2020 – VIII ZR 270/18 (headnote decision)

This decision concerned decoration obligations rather than minor repairs — but it states the mechanism that applies to any failed transfer clause. The headnote reads: “An die Stelle einer nach § 307 Abs. 1, Abs. 2 Nr. 1 BGB unwirksamen Klausel zur Durchführung von Schönheitsreparaturen durch den Mieter bei einer ohne angemessenen Ausgleich unrenoviert beziehungsweise renovierungsbedürftig überlassenen Wohnung tritt nach § 306 Abs. 2 BGB die gesetzliche Regelung des § 535 Abs. 1 Satz 2 BGB” — an invalid clause is replaced by the statutory rule. There is no reduction to a still-permissible remainder, only a complete reversion to the statutory position. Having a clause reviewed is therefore not a check on a detail but on an all-or-nothing position.

Frequently asked questions

Does the clause apply even if the tenant did not cause the damage?

Yes, and that is its actual purpose. If the tenant is at fault he is liable in damages anyway, and no clause is needed for that. The minor-repair clause is aimed precisely at ordinary wear and tear, for which § 535 Abs. 1 Satz 2 BGB otherwise puts the landlord on the hook.

What happens with an invoice above the agreed cap?

The landlord pays it in full, not merely the part above the cap. A clause that has the tenant contribute “up to” an amount towards more expensive repairs as well breaks the very limitation that makes it workable — and exposes the whole clause to invalidity under § 307 BGB.

Can an invalid clause be fixed during an ongoing tenancy?

Not unilaterally. Amending a lease requires the tenant's consent, and a tenant who has just learned that he owes nothing has little reason to give it. On a re-letting, by contrast, the clause can simply be redrafted more cautiously.

Does the II. BV catalogue apply to privately financed flats too?

Not directly — under § 1 Abs. 1 II. BV the regulation governs calculations for publicly subsidised housing and housing treated as equivalent. It is, however, the only place in German law where “minor maintenance” is defined at all, and therefore the obvious yardstick when you draft the subject-matter scope of your clause.

And what about decoration obligations?

That is a different clause with its own rules: it covers wallpapering, painting and varnishing, not repairing. The two are often confused and mixed together in contracts, which harms both. We treat them separately in our article on decoration obligations and the landlord's duty.

Every repair where it belongs

RenoDiary records tradespeople's invoices per property and per unit, separates apportionable from non-apportionable costs and keeps maintenance expenditure ready for the Anlage V — including the many small amounts nobody otherwise adds up.

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Sources

This article offers general orientation and does not replace individual tax or legal advice within the meaning of § 3 StBerG. Whether a particular minor-repair clause is valid depends on its wording in the context of the rest of the contract and is judged inconsistently by the courts; the amounts quoted from the II. BV apply directly only to price-controlled housing and are an orientation for the open market, not a limit of validity.