TENANT FIRST AID

Do you have a problem with your rental housing?

Join INN! The Tenants’ Initiative is not a consultancy organisation in the true sense of the word, we are a membership-based organisation (like a trade union). We do not provide advice, we resolve problems with landlords on our own. For example, we advise each other on negotiations with the landlord based on our collective experience, accompany each other on handovers and support each other in other ways. We are currently able to provide such support in Brno, České Budějovice, Olomouc, Ostrava and Prague. In Prague we also have a functioning network of migrant tenants who speak English. For more information on what membership entails, please visit the Get Involved section of our website. If you would like to join, and are also dealing with an acute problem, please contact us at ahoj@iniciativanajemniku.cz. We’ll let you know soon if we have capacity for your cause. You can also contact us on our phone number 704 589 454 on weekdays from 9am to 3pm, but this is a coordination line, not an advice line. At INN we deal with conflicts arising from unequal relationships between landlords and people living in rented accommodation. For example, we do not deal with neighbour conflicts or problems between flatmates.

If you just want advice, we recommend you try the Tenants’ Association (SON), which provides free legal and professional advice. You can contact them by phone, arrange a face-to-face appointment at several advice centres or email info@son.cz. They can help with tenancy agreements, housing benefit, home repairs and other issues.

The Association for Integration and Migration (SIMI) provides support for migrants in housing matters, among other things, and can be contacted on 224 224 379. On their website you will also find a manual with basic information about housing in the Czech Republic.

The Czech consumer protection company dTest also offers a new advice service for tenants – you can contact their free telephone support on 299 149 009 or use their sample contracts and letters to landlords. In our experience they answer in English as well.

Iuridicum Remedium offers free advice as well. You can use the number 776 703 170 to make an appointment for counselling.

It is important to know about the possibility of getting housing benefit. It should not be a stigmatising issue in any way: for many households, it is the defacto only way of dealing with the consequences of the housing crisis in the current system. If your housing costs exceed 30% of your net income (35% in Prague), you are entitled to a housing allowance – see the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs website for a summary. Find out how to claim housing benefit here. This information is available all in Czech however if you’re a foreigner and successfully applied for housing benefit let us know!

In a difficult life situation, we recommend contacting the Člověk v tísni helpline +420 770 600 800 or visiting one of their branches.

The most common issues for tenants are rising rents and dealing with repairs in the flat.

For rising rents, the most common question is whether there are any legal limits on rent increases. Unfortunately, this is not the case with fixed-term contracts – after the end of the term, the landlord can increase it pretty much at will. (It is different with the now rare open-ended contracts, where growth is limited to a 20% increase once every three years.) However you can always negotiate. Try to get organized with other tenants facing the same issue!

When it comes to repairs in the apartment, we recommend contacting the aforementioned SON. However, a basic overview of the landlord and tenant’s responsibility for repairs and maintenance is provided by the relatively short Government Regulation 308/2015. It is available online.