Tenants can't use address officially
Sep 19th 2014, 9:21 am
#1
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Joined: Sep 2014
Location: Budapest
Posts: 2
Tenants can't use address officially
Hi everyone
Really glad I found this forum: browsing it I've already found answers to many questions that have come up.
I'm here in Budapest (finally! There's something to be happy about...) with my partner, and we're trying to find a flat for long-term rental. By long-term I mean 1 year, which seems to be a normal minimum in Europe (unlike UK where 6 months is common).
We're both from the UK, and have plenty of savings but no work in Hungary yet. I've been learning Hungarian for about 2 years, and can write and figure out written Hungarian, as well as saying things - but still can't follow Hungarian speech very well, unless the native speaker slows down for me! My partner speaks fluent German. Both of these are a big help in negotiating about flats.
Here's the problem we're running into: there is some kind of weird business going on whereby (some) landlords don't want tenants to use the address for any kind of official purpose. That's no good for us, because though as EU citizens we can stay here for a while, after 3 months (or preferably before) we have to register residence, get the lakcímkártya etc, and for that you have to show a proof of address (tenancy agreement, for us).
Without that, no tax number, no work, no healthcare. A medium-longterm address is the first step, after which all kinds of things are possible. (I was going to say "permanent address", but that seems to be a trigger phrase that sends landlords into convulsions!
)
I expected the bureaucracy to be a bit of a pain, but we can't even get to that stage! In one flat, we'd negotiated for ages about various things, and then the "állandó lakcím" box on the contract came up - and everything went surreal. About another flat, I asked the agent in an email (in Hungarian) upfront whether this would be a problem - and she helpfully replied no go, the landlord wouldn't allow the tenant to register there, saving everyone a lot of wasted time.
A Hungarian friend thought that we didn't really need this registration, that no-one really bothers with it. The trouble with that is that it may be true for Hungarian citizens, who understand how things work, just as we understand what rules in the UK are rigidly enforced and which ones are a bit of a joke; as foreigners here, we can't start messing about with a system we don't understand (especially as, though the bureaucracy may turn out to be very annoying, the rule about registering your address is reasonable and completely normal in the whole of Europe).
I wondered - how would a Hungarian citizen rent such a flat? Would they perhaps use their parents' address/previous address, and not bother to re-register?
But if someone replies "it just doesn't make sense", that's a good enough answer for me. The more immediate question is: how should we approach this?
a) Keep quiet, so as to not freak out the landlord (though we're inevitably upfront about being UK citizens), and then... risk the negotiation falling apart after a lot of time wasted, or move into a flat, register officially, and then face an angry landlord who's had some private arrangement of his upset by this?
or
b) Ask this question from the start, and inevitably get quite a few NOs, or agents just dismissing our enquiry as too complicated, when it's already hard enough to find good rental flats in Budapest?
The option I'm not prepared to take is (as a couple of landlords suggested) to rent a flat and not register at all - who knows what future hassles and official trouble that might be storing up...
Thank you for any advice you might be able to give! Even better, if there's a way of telling whether this is likely to happen (from clues in the advert, because it's never mentioned), it would save us a lot of time chasing up flats that the landlord isn't going to rent to us anyway.
Thanks!
Seb
Really glad I found this forum: browsing it I've already found answers to many questions that have come up.
I'm here in Budapest (finally! There's something to be happy about...) with my partner, and we're trying to find a flat for long-term rental. By long-term I mean 1 year, which seems to be a normal minimum in Europe (unlike UK where 6 months is common).
We're both from the UK, and have plenty of savings but no work in Hungary yet. I've been learning Hungarian for about 2 years, and can write and figure out written Hungarian, as well as saying things - but still can't follow Hungarian speech very well, unless the native speaker slows down for me! My partner speaks fluent German. Both of these are a big help in negotiating about flats.
Here's the problem we're running into: there is some kind of weird business going on whereby (some) landlords don't want tenants to use the address for any kind of official purpose. That's no good for us, because though as EU citizens we can stay here for a while, after 3 months (or preferably before) we have to register residence, get the lakcímkártya etc, and for that you have to show a proof of address (tenancy agreement, for us).
Without that, no tax number, no work, no healthcare. A medium-longterm address is the first step, after which all kinds of things are possible. (I was going to say "permanent address", but that seems to be a trigger phrase that sends landlords into convulsions!
)I expected the bureaucracy to be a bit of a pain, but we can't even get to that stage! In one flat, we'd negotiated for ages about various things, and then the "állandó lakcím" box on the contract came up - and everything went surreal. About another flat, I asked the agent in an email (in Hungarian) upfront whether this would be a problem - and she helpfully replied no go, the landlord wouldn't allow the tenant to register there, saving everyone a lot of wasted time.
A Hungarian friend thought that we didn't really need this registration, that no-one really bothers with it. The trouble with that is that it may be true for Hungarian citizens, who understand how things work, just as we understand what rules in the UK are rigidly enforced and which ones are a bit of a joke; as foreigners here, we can't start messing about with a system we don't understand (especially as, though the bureaucracy may turn out to be very annoying, the rule about registering your address is reasonable and completely normal in the whole of Europe).
I wondered - how would a Hungarian citizen rent such a flat? Would they perhaps use their parents' address/previous address, and not bother to re-register?
But if someone replies "it just doesn't make sense", that's a good enough answer for me. The more immediate question is: how should we approach this?
a) Keep quiet, so as to not freak out the landlord (though we're inevitably upfront about being UK citizens), and then... risk the negotiation falling apart after a lot of time wasted, or move into a flat, register officially, and then face an angry landlord who's had some private arrangement of his upset by this?
or
b) Ask this question from the start, and inevitably get quite a few NOs, or agents just dismissing our enquiry as too complicated, when it's already hard enough to find good rental flats in Budapest?
The option I'm not prepared to take is (as a couple of landlords suggested) to rent a flat and not register at all - who knows what future hassles and official trouble that might be storing up...
Thank you for any advice you might be able to give! Even better, if there's a way of telling whether this is likely to happen (from clues in the advert, because it's never mentioned), it would save us a lot of time chasing up flats that the landlord isn't going to rent to us anyway.
Thanks!
Seb
Sep 19th 2014, 10:00 pm
#2
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Nov 2012
Posts: 2,096
Re: Tenants can't use address officially
Hi
There could be a number of reasons why the landlord does not want you to register your address at his flat, the first being that the landlord is not declaring the rent for tax! There is a fair amount of historical baggage with renting houses e.g. there was a law that if a landlord kicked out a tenant then the landlord had to find equivalent accommodation for the tenant, this has been repealed but people still worry about it. Also if you rent without a proper contract and registration there is nothing to stop you coming home one day to find your belongings on the street and the locks changed i.e. no security.
Renting to Hungarians without allowing the address change is not usually a problem as the tenants just used their parents address or something similar. Foreigners however will need to register.
I would ask up front to avoid a lot of your time wasted.
There could be a number of reasons why the landlord does not want you to register your address at his flat, the first being that the landlord is not declaring the rent for tax! There is a fair amount of historical baggage with renting houses e.g. there was a law that if a landlord kicked out a tenant then the landlord had to find equivalent accommodation for the tenant, this has been repealed but people still worry about it. Also if you rent without a proper contract and registration there is nothing to stop you coming home one day to find your belongings on the street and the locks changed i.e. no security.
Renting to Hungarians without allowing the address change is not usually a problem as the tenants just used their parents address or something similar. Foreigners however will need to register.
I would ask up front to avoid a lot of your time wasted.
Sep 20th 2014, 12:25 pm
#3
Just Joined
Thread Starter
Joined: Sep 2014
Location: Budapest
Posts: 2
Re: Tenants can't use address officially
Hi Peter
Many thanks for your reply. It's helpful to know the background and context - also that this problem is real and not just something that's come up because we're doing it wrong!
In the contract that we almost signed, I noticed a specific exclusion about the landlord not having to find the tenant alternative accommodation, and thought this must be there to address some presumption that they would. (Being used to UK law, I'd never expect a landlord to have to do this, of course).
It's helpful to read what you say about the implications of having no contract or no registration, as that supports what I was already thinking: that as foreigners we have to do this by the book, for our own security.
We're finding the Budapest rental market to be very illusory, at least for foreigners: the websites show a wealth of flats for rent, but as soon as you try to follow them up, they turn out to be gone already; or the agent/landlord never returns our messages; or the owner really prefers to sell the property.
Thanks again!
Many thanks for your reply. It's helpful to know the background and context - also that this problem is real and not just something that's come up because we're doing it wrong!
In the contract that we almost signed, I noticed a specific exclusion about the landlord not having to find the tenant alternative accommodation, and thought this must be there to address some presumption that they would. (Being used to UK law, I'd never expect a landlord to have to do this, of course).
It's helpful to read what you say about the implications of having no contract or no registration, as that supports what I was already thinking: that as foreigners we have to do this by the book, for our own security.
We're finding the Budapest rental market to be very illusory, at least for foreigners: the websites show a wealth of flats for rent, but as soon as you try to follow them up, they turn out to be gone already; or the agent/landlord never returns our messages; or the owner really prefers to sell the property.
Thanks again!
Sep 22nd 2014, 8:54 am
#4
Just Joined
Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 10
Re: Tenants can't use address officially
Hi Peter,
I would suggest joining some of the Budapest expat groups on Facebook. Everyday there is someone advertising a flat and they tend to be foreigners. So one would hope they understand why are need to register at the address, at least if the initial communication is though Facebook you can see if they have read the messages or not.
Try the following groups,
used stuff for sale Budapest
All expats Budapest
Expat info Budapest
English speaking expat people living in Budapest
Hope this helps.
Samantha
I would suggest joining some of the Budapest expat groups on Facebook. Everyday there is someone advertising a flat and they tend to be foreigners. So one would hope they understand why are need to register at the address, at least if the initial communication is though Facebook you can see if they have read the messages or not.
Try the following groups,
used stuff for sale Budapest
All expats Budapest
Expat info Budapest
English speaking expat people living in Budapest
Hope this helps.
Samantha
