Short Answer
The contractual term "besenrein" binds you only to sweeping the floors and removing coarse dirt rather than executing a professional deep clean.
You are legally required to clear out personal belongings, empty the basement, and remove stickers, but you do not owe the landlord polished windows or shampooed carpets.
What Most Expats Don't Realize
You spent twenty hours scrubbing every tile and polishing the window glass until it shined before your final move-out inspection. The landlord ignored your labor and pointed to a single dead insect on a windowsill, claiming the property was unrentable and demanding a professional cleaning service step in. Because you did not realize "besenrein" is a low, strictly swept standard rather than a clinical sterilization, you wasted your time and faced a withheld deposit deduction of €350 for unneeded corporate sanitation.
What To Do
- Sweep every room thoroughly and clear all garbage from the basement storage unit on the final morning.
- Bring a digital camera to take high-resolution, timestamped photographs of every empty room right after sweeping.
- "Die Wohnung ist vertragsgemäß besenrein übergeben worden." (The apartment has been handed over broom-clean according to the contract.) — say this if the landlord demands extra cosmetic scrubbing during the inspection.
The Truth
Germany’s civil courts define the handover condition strictly to prevent landlords from extracting free property upgrades from departing residents. The system automatically rejects landlord demands for premium deep-cleaning unless an explicit, highly specific individual agreement was written into the baseline lease.