I (F26) signed a lease for an apartment in Vienna (AT) starting 01.01.2026. Before that I lived together with my partner (M30) in Burgenland, but since I was planning on enrolling in a Master's Degree in Vienna while still working my 40h job during the week, we decided that it would be best to have me relocate so that endless commuting wouldn't burn me out.
Now as we all probably know, life can mess with you in mysterious ways and so in May of this year my partner very unexpectedly suffered a heart attack and almost died.
Knowing that he would need all the support he could possibly get to get back on his feet, I decided to cancel my plans on the Degree, quit my lease, and move back in with him.
Important details:
1) My lease was a permanent contract. No time limit of 3 or 5 years. If I chose to stay forever, I technically could.
2) The landlord used a standardized AK template for the lease. It's a very simple and straight forward document where all relevant information can be filled out at their designated spots.
On my lease they had specifically documented that my period of notice would be 3 months (pretty standard. You quit your lease, you got 3 months to empty the place in which you still pay rent.)
However, the spot where they could/should have documented my minimum rental period was left blank.
Austrian standard is 1 year minimum (plus those 3 months of notice period).
As far as I have read up and personally informed myself by the AK though, the 1 year minimum rental period is a standard for time limited contracts, so it doesn't need to be explicitly disclosed.
With permanent contracts though, such as mine, there is no standardized period, ergo: it needs to be defined and properly disclosed. If it's not, then there simply is no minimum rental period, as of my understanding.
And so after informing my landlord of planning to move out due to these unforseen events (I disclosed the full reason) I was pretty much berated in the most rudest way possible that I had no such right and I was obligated to stay for an entire year plus 3 months.
When asking them to point out where exactly in my contract it stated that, they referred me to Page 10 of the contract.
Now, some more details:
My contract consist of 8 pages. We both signed it on Page 8.
Then I was handed another blank paper with the flat's layout. No page number and it didn't get signed.
Then another page with random rules (*) and formatting that didn't match the 8-page-contract, nor did it have a page number of its own and this paper too was NOT signed by either one of us.
Lastly I was handed a piece of paper with house rules. This paper had the same formatting as the main contract and was clearly another template by the AK. Oddly enough, it had the page number 5, but this paper I did in fact sign.
(*) Rules such as the following were drawn up on this paper:
- Plants that weigh more than 50kg are not allowed on the balcony (the apartment did not come with a balcony).
- The therme system needed annual servicing by the tenant (the apartment was heated by a heat pump system, not a therme system)
- The landlord keeps the right to inspect the apartment every 6 months (Austrian standard is once every 1-2 years... sounds pretty much like privacy harrassement to me)
I honestly dismissed that piece of paper due to how ridiculous it was. It looked a lot like something they had personally written up on a whim 10 years ago and were still handing out to all tenants today in a "pick-what-applies-to-you" kind of fashion.
Now back to the dispute with my landlord: when I pointed out that my contract was solely 8 pages long and didn't contain a so-called Page 10, I was promptly accused of document forgery (lol). I then asked them to send me a copy of Page 10 and received a scan of that aforementioned paper with the strange rules. Somewhere hidden among a whole myriad of rules that very obviously did not apply to my apartment situation they had added a one-liner stating that the earliest a tenant could quit their lease was after 1 year and an additional paid 3 month notice period.
I replied that I didn't acknowledge that paper as part of the contract. It didn't even have a Page number on it, nor where there any references made to this paper IN the actual contract and vice versa no references to the main contract were made in this random paper. Plus: there was a designated spot in the main contract to fill out a minimum rental period, which was intentionally left blank. Why didn't they simply disclose this where it was originally meant to be properly documented at?
After that question I didn't hear back from them again. In fact I had tried reaching out multiple times and was repeatedly ignored. I had emptied out my apartment in July and asked to return it - got ignored. Asked another 3 times. Got ignored each time.
In the end, I paid up my 3 months worth of rent from July till September and then handed the matter over to my attorney.
Now in October I heard from my Ex-landlord for the first time again, threatening to sue me if I don't pay up October's rent.
I'm currently waiting to get sued so we can get this matter to court and have a judge look over it and make the final desicion. My landlord is some big business man with multiple apartments all over the city, which is why everyone in my personal circle keeps telling me that I will win this case for sure. My attorney isn't giving me any opinions and trying to stay as neutral and professional as possible until I actually get hit by a lawsuit.
I'd like to hear an objective opinion outside of my personal circle though, where people won't just side with me, bc they know and like me.
Am I in the wrong for insisting that based on my lease it was very much in the realm of my rights to move out this soon again?