Our new apartment has all the standard Luxembourg features: secure basement storage units, designated washer/dryer space and hook-up (each tenant provides his/her own), drying room (it’s illegal to dry clothes inside your apartment, so there are basement drying rooms) and balcony.
In Luxembourg, the vacancy rate is extremely low, which results in desirable places get snapped up immediately. After viewing about 30 places, most of which ranged from “this could work” to “amazing, but across from a school” or “great, but next to a construction site,” we were lucky to find this. Or, since I was in New York at the time, I should say Angelo was fortunate to push his way in to view this apartment. He took it on the spot and returned to New York with nary a signed piece of paper. We were assured it was ours, but it wasn’t until our relocation specialist emailed the lease summary (in French. Oh, je regrette, no translation available.) to us that I felt more confident.
Of interest to expats:
- The standard lease term is three years, renewable each year with a three-month notice period. A diplomatic clause enables expats to terminate the lease with 30 days’ notice if there’s a change in employment status, e.g. transfer.
- Tenant property insurance is required.
- Rent is exclusive of monthly maintenance charges (we saw a range, but generally a few hundred euro per month).
- A bank guarantee is obtained for the deposits, in our case first and last month payments and security deposit. The typical broker fee is one month’s rent + VAT (15%).
- Rental payments, like utilities, are arranged through your local bank.
- Apartments do not include lighting fixtures.
- It’s illegal for the electricity to be cut off to an apartment, so the utilities will simply be transferred to your name.
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