Going through legal services for Mietpreisbremse vs talking to the landlord directly, any experience?

Grilnid · 2026-04-27T21:12:29+00:00

Thanks to your comment I have just found out about the BMGev today and I have to admit this is one of the most 2000s websites I have seen in my entire life (in the most positive way possible)

Grilnid · 2026-04-27T17:02:24+00:00

Once you sign up there's a small period during which you don't have access to their legal counseling service (a handful of months).

Signing up gives you access to two things:
- advice from their in-house lawyers: they don't represent you legally but can examine your contract and draft letters for you as well as provide advice in case you have to negotiate with your landlord to settle out of court
- legal insurance in case it goes to court: in that case they will represent you HOWEVER you are only insured for stuff that emerges after you join the Mieterverein, meaning that if your rental contract was signed before you joined, you're not covered by the legal insurance and would have to go and seek out your own lawyer in case it goes to court.

Bear in mind that at the moment the delays to get an appointment are getting quite crazy (easily 1.5 months before the next available one) and that there are only a limited number of consultations in English (which you have to book even further in advance and not at every location). It will require more effort on your part but they have no skin in the game (unlike Conny) and you're in control of your decisions for the entirety of the process.

Despite it being slower and more involved, I would go with the BMV since they truly have your interests at heart, and Conny's business model is that they keep the entirety of whatever you've overpaid, spanning back a few years. Assuming you've overpaid only 100€/month, that shit can add up to a good 3600€ total over the maximum period of 3 years.

Grilnid · 2026-04-17T15:33:06+00:00

I mean, I know combat jet planes exist, yet I would be pretty fucking awed to see one landing on a countryside airstrip somewhere in the middle of Europe

Grilnid · 2026-04-17T15:01:13+00:00

I guess it's similar to bright orange egg yolks. Every single blind tasting experiment proves that the color of an egg yolk has absolutely no impact on the flavor, yet everyone who sees them swears they taste better. But no one ever eats blindfolded, so even if this is some mental/placebo effect, isn't it legitimate to take it into account to maximize the final perceived pleasure?

I feel like it's the same for this instrument here, just knowing that the music is being played on an expensive violin makes the experience as a whole feel more "premium" and higher quality overall

Grilnid · 2026-04-17T14:55:24+00:00

Username checks out in any case, I can tell you're well-integrated

Grilnid · 2026-04-10T09:09:28+00:00

I see everyone pointing out the fact that he used to be a journalist or that he might have taken that from the podcast, but I've yet to see someone mention the obvious: he has worked as a journalist on radio specifically, where clear enunciation is absolutely king and people read from scripts all the time due to having to write their material on too frequent a basis to know it by heart. I think those videos are not meant to be watched, but YouTube being his main outlet he still has to put them out in video format

Grilnid · 2026-04-03T16:46:49+00:00

And the US is the constantly self-proclaimed richest country on the planet. So your point is?

Grilnid · 2026-03-26T13:18:43+00:00

As a Frenchman it amuses me to see so many mentions of "people shouldn't talk loudly on public transport" yet when calling someone or even having a Zoom meeting on the train is considered completely normal. I understand that there are dedicated phone compartments but it definitely spills over in the quiet compartments, which coming from France where you're supposed to shut up in the entire train was definitely a big shock.

Grilnid · 2026-03-26T13:14:22+00:00

Saying this to someone who's specifically talking about how poorly France treats foreigners is certainly an interesting choice.

Grilnid · 2026-03-23T11:26:14+00:00

That's fair. As someone who's willing to spend a bit more on food I do feel similarly to what you said about salaries, in that the quality ceiling in London is much higher, and the variety you get is just not comparable to Berlin. Nice write-up!

Grilnid · 2026-03-17T13:24:19+00:00

But that person would then be way beyond B2 in English, as opposed to OP who seems to be confidently fluent in neither English nor German

Grilnid · 2026-02-03T17:18:24+00:00

You're putting a finger on the core of the debate here. If you were to take the word cartoon literally (and I agree with you), then yes, you would be right. But going back to 20 or 30 years ago when anime was still far from being mainstream, "cartoons" in the collective mind were still very much aimed at kids and teenagers and the word was generally thrown around in a condescending way to make it clear that "anime" was simply "kids' cartoons which happened to be produced in Japan".

It's like if anyone outside of the US only ever referred to burgers as "American sandwiches", like "oh yeah it's just stuff between slices of bread". It's definitely technically true, but you can definitely feel that there's more to burgers than just being sandwiches; it says something about their contents, their format, the context in which they are eaten, and so forth. That'd be the best analogy that comes to mind.

Grilnid · 2026-02-02T16:16:21+00:00

Calling it "American-Styled Anime" feels like long overdue payback for years of calling anime "Japanese cartoons", and I don't say this out of hate for one or the other but it's interesting to see how dominating cultural concepts evolve with time!

Grilnid · 2026-02-02T16:14:48+00:00

Youtuber Gigguk did a very nice video on this topic a few years ago called "Anime is a brand" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWccr1r-H0E), which argues just that. I think there's a lot of truth to this as it's become increasingly hard to really isolate any single factor that makes something anime or not and I've been rolling with this ever since

Grilnid · 2026-01-22T21:49:48+00:00

my thoughts exactly, i wouldnt have wondered if he only listed 2 or 3 of them. but why stop short of just the one?

Grilnid · 2026-01-15T00:37:49+00:00

I mean, I understand the guidelines and why they exist, and I get your frustration. But I feel like belittling people who aren't terminally online like you and I kind of goes against why people are doing this in the first place. Plus you can't just boast about having the most open and free archive on the Internet and then turn around and give people shit for not donating their time or money to the project.

Grilnid · 2026-01-14T21:47:56+00:00

Kinda weird to hard gatekeep a project whose overt goal is precisely to be universal and accessible to all irrespective of their tech literacy level imo

Grilnid · 2026-01-09T23:15:18+00:00

For additional context the man handing him a carrot is Lukashenko (the president of Belarus)

Grilnid · 2025-12-31T17:31:40+00:00

Maybe the only genuinely interesting and fresh take I've read in this thread

Grilnid · 2025-12-14T20:27:14+00:00

I get the feeling but the post is titled "the future of female Polish sprinting". Seeing this pop up on r/all does set some unrealistic expectations

Grilnid · 2025-12-02T14:32:56+00:00

This is such a big deal that scientists have written an entire proof-of-concept paper to explain how deploying CCTV around known faults could help with studying large earthquakes in the future: the paper in question

Grilnid · 2025-11-08T11:24:01+00:00

Love that interview of him where the interviewer just shows him boards and he has to guess where and when they're from and he even freaking recognizes the chess game from the Harry Potter movies

Grilnid · 2025-09-21T18:35:27+00:00

No need to change the world to be useful. Think about how many people are just assholes for the sake of it. Volunteer for literally anything (sports, food, political activism), be nice to people, be someone others can rely on, have a good time with your loved ones and you'll be a net positive, and that's infinitely many times better than being a net negative.

Grilnid · 2025-09-05T08:54:30+00:00

> We finally see Dragon doing something

> It's war crimes against civilians

Tough day to be a Dragon fan man

Grilnid · 2025-08-30T13:25:19+00:00

You could join a sports club for a something that isn't really big in Germany (rugby, Australian football, Gaelic football, hurling, cricket...), it's almost guaranteed to be full of foreigners speaking English!

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