If a cable connection is part of the rental agreement, tenants must continue to pay this fee via their utility bill.

The Federal Court of Justice declared on Thursday that such an approach by the housing association Vivawest Wohnen from Essen does not violate the Telecommunications Act.

The first civil senate thus confirmed the ancillary costs privilege of landlords, i.e. the ability to allocate the cable connection in the utility bill.

Millions of tenants in housing corporations and large property owners must therefore be patient.

A new law does not prohibit this practice until summer 2024 after a transition period (Az .: I ZR 106/20).

Marcus Jung

Editor in business.

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The competition headquarters had sued up to the last instance in Karlsruhe. On the other hand, Vivawest, is a housing company that has concluded at least 108,000 residential rental contracts with a corresponding agreement in North Rhine-Westphalia. The consumer advocates were bothered by the fact that tenants had no option to use other, cheaper providers when they moved in, and even then had to pay if they did not use the connection. Tenants should be bound to the broadband cable connection provided by the landlord for a maximum of 24 months after the conclusion of their rental contract, demanded the competition headquarters. Because this makes Vivawest a provider of publicly accessible telecommunications services.

In the opinion of the first Senate, however, these regulations are not relevant.

As the BGH announced, the legislature did not want to include large housing associations in their validity.

This also results from the current change in the law.

If you want to disconnect from the cable connection, you can do this by terminating the lease.

Free competition from 2024

"Independent of this BGH decision, we have thus achieved our goal of enabling free competition between providers in this sector: From the end of June 2024, consumers will then have appropriate freedom of choice," explained Elvira Schad, member of the management of the competition headquarters.

Vivawest sees itself confirmed by the judgment.

With reference to the amendment to the Telecommunications Act that came into force on December 1, 2021, the BGH expressly stated that landlords can continue to equip their apartments with a broadband connection and invoice the costs for this as part of the lease, a spokesman said in writing.

Exercising the opt-out right is only conceivable from July 1, 2024.

"Before this point in time, a separate termination of the use of the broadband connection by the tenant is not possible within the framework of an ongoing tenancy."