landlord

noun · Vermieter

Vermieter and Mieter are the words for the letting relationship, and they follow the contract type: where the arrangement is a Pacht the parties become Verpächter and Pächter. The English pair landlord and tenant additionally carries the whole common-law estate vocabulary, which German tenancy law does not share, since a German tenancy is a contract and not an interest in land.

Which translation, when

Vermieter und Mieterthe pair: the letting party is the Vermieter, the taking party the Mieter, and the relationship itself the Mietverhältnis; the terms attach to the contract of Miete, so where the arrangement gives the taker the fruits as well and is therefore a Pacht, the parties are the Verpächter and the Pächter, a distinction the lease entry holds on the contract side.

Vertrag statt Rechtsstellungthe systemic gap: English landlord and tenant law sits in the law of estates, with the tenancy itself an interest in land that can be assigned and that binds successors as a matter of property law, while a German Mietverhältnis is a contractual relationship, protected by statute and by the rule that a sale does not break the lease but not by an estate in the property; translating landlord as Grundeigentümer therefore imports ownership that the letting party need not have, since a subletting Mieter is himself a Vermieter.

Nachbarwörterthe neighbours: der Eigentümer is the owner, der Hausverwalter the managing agent who acts for the landlord without being one, der Untermieter the subtenant and der Hauptmieter the head tenant, while Wohnungseigentümer belongs to condominium law; the register word Hauswirt is dialectal and Mietherr archaic, so neither belongs in a contract.

Why

Landlord is the Vermieter and tenant the Mieter, and the pair looks simple until two things are noticed. The first is that the words follow the contract type. They belong to the Mietvertrag, the contract for the use of a thing against rent; where the arrangement also gives the taker the fruits, and is therefore a Pachtvertrag, the parties change their names to Verpächter and Pächter, which matters for restaurants let as going concerns, for farms and for licensed businesses. The contract-type distinction itself is held by the lease entry. The second point is systemic and easy to miss because the English words look like mere labels. In English law landlord and tenant is a chapter of the law of estates: the tenancy is an interest in land, capable of assignment, binding on successors by property law, and the landlord holds the reversion. German tenancy law works differently. A Mietverhältnis is a contractual relationship, given strong statutory protection and the rule that a sale of the property does not break the lease, but it is not an estate, and the Vermieter need not own anything, since a tenant who sublets is himself a Vermieter towards his Untermieter. Rendering landlord as Grundeigentümer therefore imports ownership the letting party may well lack, and rendering Vermieter as owner does the same in reverse. The surrounding vocabulary follows: der Eigentümer is the owner, der Hausverwalter the managing agent acting for the landlord, der Hauptmieter the head tenant, and the archaic Mietherr or the dialectal Hauswirt have no place in a contract.

Typical mistakes

A Vermieter need not own the property, since a subletting tenant is one, so rendering landlord as Grundeigentümer imports ownership that may not exist.
Where the contract is a Pacht the parties are Verpächter and Pächter, so keeping Vermieter for a leased business misnames the relationship.
English landlord and tenant law works with estates in land while a German tenancy is contractual, so property vocabulary carried across misdescribes the position.

What matters

Translating a tenancy agreement into German: the parties should be named Vermieter and Mieter where the contract is a Miete, Verpächter and Pächter where it is a Pacht, and ownership vocabulary kept out unless the source actually asserts it.

Authority

§ 535 BGB

What the machine misses

Machine renderings of landlord reach for Grundeigentümer or Hauswirt, one asserting ownership and the other dialect, and the contractual party is the Vermieter, who need not own the property at all since a subletting tenant is one; where the contract is a Pacht the parties are Verpächter and Pächter, which the machine word also flattens.

See what the machine does with this clause →

Examples

the landlord and the tenant	der Vermieter und der Mieter
the tenancy	das Mietverhältnis
the head tenant sublets to a subtenant	der Hauptmieter untervermietet an einen Untermieter
the managing agent	der Hausverwalter

More notes on these sections

lease Mietvertrag

leasehold Erbbaurecht