[lunaticlabs]

As a non-German living in Germany, the German insistence on you buying your kitchen in a rental is really really stupid, and serves no purpose. Besides the schemes listed here, where the landlord tries to sell you the previous kitchen at full price, the old renter will do it too. If they're having you take over their contract, they have some choice in who the renter is, and will often condition their acceptance of your rental offer on taking their kitchen at full price or more. If you don't want it, someone else desperate will take it. There's also a robust marketplace of second hand kitchen appliances on FB marketplace, where the tenants tried to do the same thing or just generally got stuck with taking their kitchen, and now are trying to unload appliances that don't fit the new place. In Germany, its not just fridges. It's also the stove/oven combo sometimes, the dishwasher, and the lights and lightbulbs. It's a horrible inefficient system that just makes renting a nightmare, and keeps everyone in place because of the enormous hassle of moving (the standard 90 day notice period doesn't help either. Trying to line up a new lease and old one ending without significant overlap is also next to impossible. The German rental market is broken).