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VIENNA

How do I lower my rent if I pay too much in Vienna?

If you live in an older building, a so called "Altbau", the price per square meter is regulated. If you are paying too much rent, there are ways to lower it and claim your money back.

Published: 24 April 2024 12:53 CEST
How do I lower my rent if I pay too much in Vienna?
There are ways to take down your rent in Vienna if you pay too much.

Vienna is known for offering its residents affordable rents. However, if you live in one of the older apartments in Vienna (Altbau), you should know that there is a limit on how much rent can be charged per square meter.

Some landlords rent out their flats more expensively than they are actually allowed to. The City of Vienna’s rent calculator can help you determine if you are paying too much.

If you believe that your rent is too high, there are three different options on how to bring it down and also get the money back from the time when you paid too much.

Hire a company to take on your case

In Vienna, several companies, known as Prozessfinanzierer in German, will take on your case individually and try to reduce your rent. This could not only result in a lower rent for the future but also in you receiving a refund for the period you overpaid. It is even possible to pursue this after you leave your apartment. 

However, the City of Vienna has warned against using these services. If you are successful, the companies could claim a great portion of the refunded money, ranging from 30 percent to even half. MeinBezirk also reported occasions when employees of these companies have gone door to door, pretending to be city officials to secure contracts with excessively high commission payments.

Tenant protection organisations argue, as cited in Der Standard, that the companies may prioritise their profits over the best interests of tenants, negatively impacting tenant-landlord relationships.

However, these companies typically operate on a ‘no win-no fee’ basis, which means that you do not have to pay anything if the reduction attempt is unsuccessful. 

READ MORE: Gemeindebau: How do you qualify for a social housing flat in Vienna?

Get help from the Mietervereinigung

Another option is to get help from the Mietervereinigung. This is a tenants’ association that supports tenants’ rights and interests. A yearly membership costs around €69 in Vienna (it also operates in Austria’s other federal states).

Once you are a member, you can go to them for help. They will assist you with claiming back your rent if you have been overpaying, and can also help with rental problems such as mould, contracts, painting, disputes with landlords and housing standards. 

The association also offer education and information to help you understand your rights and responsibilities under landlord-tenant laws. This includes workshops and seminars about topics related to housing rights and regulations.

The association is also known for publishing guides, brochures, and online resources with practical tips for dealing with common rental issues.

The Mietervereinigung offers services and guidance for its members over the phone, online or through meetings in person. 

Altbau in Alsegrund, district 9 in Vienna. Photo by Melloo on Unsplash

Do it yourself

The third option you have as a tenant is to go to the arbitration board yourself.

The arbitration board is an independent entity established to help resolve conflicts between tenants and landlords outside of the court system. However, this can sometimes be complicated.

You often need certain legal expertise to be successful and the process can be complex and time consuming.

READ NEXT: How does urban gardening work in Vienna?

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VIENNA

Vienna Festival director Milo Rau hits back at anti-Semitism accusations

One of the latest events in Europe to be hit with accusations of anti-Semitism, the Vienna Festival kicks off Friday, with its new director, Milo Rau, urging that places of culture be kept free of the "antagonism" of the Israel-Hamas war while still tackling difficult issues.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:48 CEST
Vienna Festival director Milo Rau hits back at anti-Semitism accusations

As the conflict in Gaza sharply polarises opinion, “we must be inflexible” in defending the free exchange of ideas and opinions, the acclaimed Swiss director told AFP in an interview this week.

“I’m not going to take a step aside… If we let the antagonism of the war and of our society seep into our cultural and academic institutions, we will have completely lost,” said the 47-year-old, who will inaugurate the Wiener Festwochen, a festival of theatre, concerts, opera, film and lectures that runs until June 23rd in the Austrian capital and that has taken on a more political turn under his tenure.

The Swiss director has made his name as a provocateur, whether travelling to Moscow to stage a re-enactment of the trial of Russian protest punk band Pussy Riot, using children to play out the story of notorious Belgian paedophile Marc Dutroux, or trying to recruit Islamic State jihadists as actors.

Completely ridiculous 

The Vienna Festival has angered Austria’s conservative-led government — which is close to Israel — by inviting Greek former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and French Nobel Prize winner for literature Annie Ernaux, both considered too critical of Israel.

A speech ahead of the festival on Judenplatz (Jews’ Square) by Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm — who has called for replacing Israel with a bi-national state for Arabs and Jews —  also made noise.

“Who will be left to invite?  Every day, there are around ten articles accusing us of being anti-Semitic, saying that our flag looks like the Palestinian flag, completely ridiculous things,” Rau said, as he worked from a giant bed which has been especially designed by art students and installed at the festival office.

Hamas’ bloody October 7th assault on southern Israel and the devastating Israeli response have stoked existing rancour over the Middle East conflict between two diametrically opposed camps in Europe.

In this climate, “listening to the other side is already treachery,” lamented the artistic director.

“Wars begin in this impossibility of listening, and I find it sad that we Europeans are repeating war at our level,” he said.

As head of also the NTGent theatre in the Belgian city of Ghent, he adds his time currently “is divided between a pro-Palestinian country and a pro-Israeli country,” or between “colonial guilt” in Belgium and “genocide guilt” in Austria, Adolf Hitler’s birthplace.

Institutional revolution

The “Free Republic of Vienna” will be proclaimed on Friday as this year’s Vienna Festival celebrates. according to Rau, “a second modernism, democratic, open to the world” in the city of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and artist and symbolist master Gustav Klimt.

Some 50,000 people are expected to attend the opening ceremony on the square in front of Vienna’s majestic neo-Gothic town hall.

With Rau describing it as an “institutional revolution” and unlike any other festival in Europe, the republic has its own anthem, its own flag and a council made up of Viennese citizens, as well as honorary members, including Varoufakis and Ernaux, who will participate virtually in the debates.

The republic will also have show trials — with real lawyers, judges and politicians participating — on three weekends.

Though there won’t be any verdicts, Rau himself will be in the dock to embody “the elitist art system”, followed by the republic of Austria and finally by the anti-immigrant far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), which leads polls in the Alpine EU member ahead of September national elections.

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