Can you move into your investment property later?

Yes, but owning the apartment does not give you the right to live in it. A lease continues until it ends lawfully: the tenant leaves, you agree an end date, or you give valid notice for personal need (Eigenbedarf), which the tenant can contest. On the day you move in, rent and rental deductions stop, and a new build claiming special depreciation may have to repay it, with interest, if it stops being let within ten years. Living there long enough can make a later sale tax-free, but that is a separate test from whether you may move in.

This guide covers a change of use after purchase. Investing versus buying a home is in buying a rental property while renting; tenanted versus vacant purchases in buying a tenanted apartment.

Vacant. If the last tenancy has ended, you can move in. Rental deductions end when you stop intending to let, so note the date you decided.

Tenanted. The buyer steps into the seller's lease (§ 566 BGB), including any clause excluding notice for personal need, so read it first. There are three lawful routes to an empty apartment:

• The tenant gives notice, usually three months (§ 573c(1) BGB).
• A written termination agreement (Mietaufhebungsvertrag), often with a payment towards moving costs. That payment is not deductible when you intend to live there yourself (BFH IX R 38/03).
• Notice for personal need, explained below.

A landlord can end an open-ended residential lease only with a legitimate interest (§ 573(1) BGB). Needing the apartment as a home for yourself, your family or members of your household is one (§ 573(2) no. 2 BGB). A plan to move in someday is not.

• Written form and reasons. A signed letter, not an email (§ 568(1) BGB), stating who will live there and why. Reasons left out count only if they arose later (§ 573(3) BGB).
• Notice period. Three months, rising to six after five years of tenancy and nine after eight (§ 573c(1) BGB).
• Hardship objection. The tenant can object if ending the tenancy would be a hardship your interest does not justify, including when reasonable replacement housing cannot be found (§ 574 BGB). The objection is due in text form at least two months before the tenancy ends, or at the first court hearing if you did not point out this right in time (§ 574b BGB; § 568(2) BGB). A court can extend the tenancy, even indefinitely (§ 574a BGB).
• A tenant who stays. Only a court judgment, enforced by a bailiff (Gerichtsvollzieher), removes them (§ 885 ZPO). Changing the locks is unlawful self-help (§ 858 BGB).
• A genuine need. If you claim a need that does not exist and the tenant moves out, you can be liable for their losses (BGH VIII ZR 44/16).

Have a tenancy lawyer (Fachanwalt für Mietrecht) draft or check the notice: a defective one usually has to be given again, with a fresh notice period.

If the building was divided into condominiums after the tenant moved in and the apartment then sold, the buyer cannot give notice for personal need for three years (§ 577a(1) BGB). States can extend this to up to ten years (para. 2).

• Berlin: ten years citywide, under an ordinance in force from 1 October 2023 until 30 September 2033 (ordinance text; Berlin Senate).
• Dresden and Leipzig: Saxony's building ministry states that no extension ordinance has been issued, so three years applies (Saxon State Ministry, checked 3 October 2026).

Compare three dates: when the condominium was created (the declaration of division, Teilungserklärung), when the tenant moved in, and when you bought.

Letting on an open-ended lease while already decided on, or seriously considering, moving in soon can make a later notice an abuse of rights; a need that arises later is not abusive merely because it was foreseeable (BGH VIII ZR 154/14). If your plan is concrete, use a fixed-term lease (Zeitmietvertrag), stating in writing at signing that you intend to live there afterwards (§ 575(1) BGB).

Rental costs are deductible because they earn taxable rent (§ 9(1) EStG); the costs of your own home are private (§ 12 no. 1 EStG). From the day you move in:

• Rent and deductions stop. Loan interest, your share of the service charge (Hausgeld), management and repairs are no longer deductible. For the year of the move, you declare rent and costs up to that date.
• Ordinary depreciation (AfA) stops. If you let again later, it generally resumes, but the years you lived there count as used up. Your tax adviser (Steuerberater) calculates the remainder.
• Declining-balance AfA stops too. § 7(5a) EStG has no letting period of its own, so nothing is clawed back, but nothing is deducted while you live there.
• Special depreciation can be reversed. § 7b EStG requires letting for payment in the year of acquisition and the following nine years. Living there yourself is not letting (BMF letter of 21 May 2025, para. 32). If letting ends early, all special depreciation claimed is reversed and earlier assessments amended (§ 7b(4) EStG), with interest on the back tax at 0.15 per cent a month (BMF para. 72; § 238(1a) AO). You report the end of letting with that year's return (BMF para. 69). Eligibility is covered in Sonder-AfA under § 7b.

Your lender counted the rent when approving the loan; after you move in, the full payment comes from your income. Read the loan agreement for a stated purpose and any duty to report a change of use; if it is unclear, ask the lender in writing.

KfW's information sheet for new-build loans 297/298, valid from 30 July 2026, assigns 297 to private individuals who live in the home and 298 to those who do not. Funded homes must be used for housing for ten years; a change or end of use must be reported to KfW without delay, and KfW can reclaim funding proportionately (KfW 297/298 information sheet). If you used 298, ask your financing partner before moving in.

A sale within ten years of purchase is generally taxable, and depreciation claimed while let increases the gain (§ 23(1) sentence 1 no. 1 and (3) sentence 4 EStG). The gain is exempt if you used the property only as your own home throughout, or in the year of sale and the two preceding calendar years. The Federal Fiscal Court reads the second option as one continuous period across three calendar years: the middle year in full, the outer years in part (BFH IX R 37/16; BFH IX R 10/19).

This exemption says nothing about whether you may move in; tenancy law decides that. For a § 7b apartment, a tax-free sale within the letting period also triggers the reversal (§ 7b(4) no. 2 EStG). Dates and evidence are in selling after ten years.

Apartment A: a tenanted resale

Illustrative example. Fictional figures. Leipzig, two rooms, 65 m², completed 1996. Purchase contract 15 January 2026 at €240,000; benefits and burdens transferred 1 April 2026. Building base €199,026 (75 per cent of €265,368 acquisition cost), depreciated at 2 per cent: €3,980.52 a year. Loan €216,000 at an assumed 3.7 per cent nominal, 2 per cent initial repayment, €1,026 a month from April 2026. Cold rent €900; Hausgeld €330, of which €210 is recoverable through the tenant's advance; management €35. Deductible costs as in our cash-flow guide. Tenant in place since 1 May 2021. Assumed: the condominium was created at construction, before this tenant moved in; marginal tax rate 42 per cent, excluding solidarity surcharge and church tax.

What changes for A:

• Access. No conversion after the tenancy began, so § 577a does not apply. Notice for personal need received in 2028 carries six months; from May 2029, nine.
• Household cash. Compare the €1,356 for loan and Hausgeld (which includes heating and water) with the warm rent you pay now, then add electricity, insurance and repairs.
• Tax. The rental loss and its relief end. Suppose the tenant leaves by agreement and you move in on 1 November 2028, having claimed €10,283.01 of depreciation. Living there until a sale in 2030 or later meets the own-use test; a sale in 2029 would not, and that depreciation would increase the taxable gain. Sale contracts after 15 January 2036 fall outside § 23.

Apartment B: a new build with special depreciation

Illustrative example. Fictional figures. Leipzig, 50 m², bought off-plan from a developer for €250,000 plus 7.5 per cent purchase costs. Building application filed in 2024; contract 6 March 2025; completion and transfer 1 November 2026; let from completion. Building cost €228,437.50 (85 per cent), or €4,568.75 per m². Assumed to meet every § 7b condition (Effizienzhaus 40 with the QNG sustainability seal; costs under the €5,200 per m² cap), to claim it in full, and to use declining-balance AfA, for which the contract falls in § 7(5a)'s window of 1 October 2023 to 30 September 2029 and B is acquired in its completion year. Special depreciation base capped at €4,000 per m²: €200,000. Marginal rate 42 per cent, excluding solidarity surcharge and church tax.

What changes for B:

• Timing decides the cost. Moving in during 2030 means €16,800 of back tax plus interest. Waiting until 2036 avoids it. The period runs by calendar year, so it ends about nine years and two months after completion.
• Lease choice. A fixed-term lease for your later own use is lawful, but ending it before 2036 ends the special depreciation too.
• Funding and sale. If B used KfW 298, ask the financing partner first. B's § 23 period runs from the contract: sales after 6 March 2035 fall outside it.

Once the tenant has agreed to leave or the tenancy has ended, practical work follows: the handover, meter readings, the deposit settlement and a final operating-cost statement, due within 12 months of the end of the accounting period (§ 556(3) BGB). Alpha Minoris's Vermieter-Autopilot can coordinate communication with the tenant and these steps for apartments in Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig, within a written mandate; you need not live there. Notices belong with a tenancy lawyer, tax with your Steuerberater, and you remain the landlord until the tenancy ends.

If you might live in the apartment one day, decide that before you buy: it changes which apartment, which lease and which tax incentives make sense. Discuss your first rental property with Alpha Minoris.