Paying the rent and rent raise

You can agree with the landlord on the rental term and payment date. Unless you have agreed otherwise, you must pay the rent on the second day of each month.

You have to keep paying the rent until the end of your lease. You start paying rent when the apartment is available to you, even if you actually move in later. The rent must be paid until the end of the notice period, even if the tenant moves out of the apartment earlier.

You can pay the rent using a bank or some other payment service provider. If you pay the rent through a payment service provider, it is regarded as having been paid on the date on which your account is debited, or you pay it in cash at the payment service provider’s office.

Prepaid rent

Prepaid rent means rent you pay in advance. It is different from the security deposit.

If the landlord asks for pre-paid rent, this must be agreed when the lease is made, not later during the lease. The landlord can only demand prepaid rent for a special reason, and even in this case for at most three months. An example of a special reason is using the prepaid rent to make repairs in the flat. If the landlord demands prepaid rent, you should also agree on how this payment will be taken into account in payments during the lease.

Read more about security deposit 

Rent raise

The amount of rent is what is agreed in the lease. You should also agree on any separate charges (including for water) and how they are determined.
The landlord does not have the right to make a rent raise one-sidedly during the lease. The lease may contain a clause on adjusting the rent. This clause gives the grounds for increasing the rent (for example, an index-linked increase, a percentage-based increase or an increase in a euro amount). The adjustment clause is invalid if it does not contain the grounds for the increase.

Before the rent raise enters into force, the landlord must inform the tenant in written of the new rent and the date on which it takes effect.

Good tenancy practices recommend that the rent raise may not be more than 15% a year, unless such major renovations have been made that the rental value of the dwelling has increased significantly. In assessing the reasonableness of a rent raise, what matters is the amount of demanded rent, not the percentage change.

If the lease does not contain a rent adjustment clause, the parties can agree on changes in the amount of the rent during the lease.

If the parties cannot reach an agreement on the new rent amount during the lease, the landlord can terminate the lease. However, the rent raise the landlord asks for must be reasonable. If the landlord asks for an unfair amount of rent because they wish to terminate the lease, the tenant may take the matter to court and ask the court to declare the termination invalid, or demand compensation because the landlord terminated the lease without a proper reason.

Under the law, both the tenant and the landlord also have the right to ask the court of law to decide if the rent, or the clause concerning its determination, is reasonable. The tenant cannot make such demands after the lease has ended.