I'm an EU-citizen (Polish) and I'm starting my first full-time job in Germany in one week. I've already found a place to stay, but still without formal registration (Anmeldung). The HR person of the company I will be working for claims that I have to find a place to stay and be officially registered before I start my job there. They say that my contract will be vaild only if I will have that registration and I won't be able to open a bank account, register in social insurance system and so on.
For me, that sounds pretty scary, because the situation on the flat market is very bad in Berlin right now. It's very hard to find something in affordable price and the landlords usually don't want to register people, due to risks, like being not able to evict people that are not paying on time.
So the question is: do I really need to be registered, before I start my job there, or is there some period I can work without bothering about registration?
EDIT: The berlin.de website states that there is a 14-days period after the arrival, when the registration must be done. It is also said that landlords have to make registration possible, but in practice nobody force them to do that.