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I live in Hamburg. I have a blue card. My wife submitted an application to join me here in Germany. After a few weeks, I received a letter indicating that I need to submit some documents, including proof of space.

First, I will start with giving a little bit of a background to explain the situation. When I came here to Germany, a few months ago, I found a flat via Airbnb to live in temporarily. Then I made a deal with the "owner" of the flat to rent the flat for a long duration and to provide me with a rental agreement (Mietvertrag) needed to sort out my papers.

Now when I tried to submit these documents as a proof of space for my wife to be granted a visa and join me, I discovered that my landlord himself is (permanently) using this flat and that it belongs to a housing cooperative. So the visa office asked me to provide a confirmation that the housing cooperative are aware about and okay with this subletting. I am not sure if they are (I did not know whether they exist), and I have less than two weeks to send this confirmation (they are not enough to find a new flat and get a new residence certificate with the new address). And my landlord is not answering my messages (yet).

What do you suggest I should do?

PS. the space is enough to accomodate me and my wife. I live alone in the flat and have a rental agreemenet signed by the (sub-) landlord and me, which I sent to the visa office.

Thanks.

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Your landlord has to send you a copy of his own tenancy agreement or a written attachment to that agreement from the owner (the housing cooperative) to the tenant (your landlord) which says

Die Untervermietung ist gestattet. ("Subletting is allowed.")

or similar. Because without that explicit permission, subletting is generally not allowed.

You have to get that sheet from your landlord. The housing cooperative isn't allowed to give you anything because it's your landlord's data. So, you have to contact him.

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  • Thanks for your answer. But I think they explicitly say in the letter that they expect the letter from the cooperation. They said "Ein Dokument des hauptmieters allein reicht als Bestätigung nicht aus. ..... Wir benotigen von [name of the cooperation] eine Bestätigung uber die Untervermietung der Wohnung [Address] Hamburg an Sie über des hauptmieter [name of the landlord]"
    – M20
    Commented May 31, 2018 at 21:47
  • And I feel that it is not my fault this whole story. I found a flat and rented it with a rental agreement. I thought maybe there is a way to explain this to the visa officer.
    – M20
    Commented May 31, 2018 at 21:49
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    Yes, they need the letter from the owner (the housing cooperative). But the owner isn't allowed to give you any information about their tenancy agreement with your landlord. You are not their contract partner. You have to get a copy of that letter from your landlord.
    – Janka
    Commented May 31, 2018 at 21:49
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    You should do that in any case. I also recommend not to contact the housing cooperative at all. Should your landlord not have a subletting permission –unlikely!–, this will create extra trouble. Hamburg is short of housing, and people turning (state-owned) subsidized housing into an airbnb moneymaking scheme are on the literal hit list of the city's officials.
    – Janka
    Commented May 31, 2018 at 21:56
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    Maybe I should have written –likely!–. Sorry to say that but there are a lot of opportunists out there who simply do that – and don't pay taxes either. That's why I recommend looking for new accomodation, you may have triggered the thunderstorm already.
    – Janka
    Commented May 31, 2018 at 22:02

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