Meaning of "following the end of the month after next" on room contract?

Question

My landlord has provided the following information to terminate the contract period on their website (under Accommodation FAQs at the bottom):

What are the notice periods? As an exception, the tenancy can only be terminated before the end of the contractual period under special circumstances. Termination is permitted no later than the third working day of a calendar month following the end of the month after next. Receipt is decisive for compliance with the deadline.

The same information is also mentioned in the contract.

I'm not getting what does it mean by "...third working day of a calendar month following the end of the month after next" as a whole.

Specially, I'm confused about the part "following the end of the month after next". Could anyone with a legal background or better English explain it? Thanks.

If it helps, the contract was signed in Germany.

Answer 1

This is an exceptionally bad translation of the original German. What it is supposed to mean:

• breaking the lease prematurely is only possible under special circumstances
• the lease can only end at the end of a month
• notice is required three months in advance, though it's possible to give notice at the latest on the third business day of this period
• for determining whether this deadline was complied with, it matters when the termination notice was received, not when it was sent (such notice must be in writing)

All of this is entirely standard for a German rental contract.

Practical example:

• Today's date is 2022-03-26.

• You'd like to end the lease as soon as possible and have special grounds why you can no longer be expected to continue the lease.

• Thus, you want to give notice at the latest at the beginning of April. Your termination notice must be received at the latest on Monday 2022-04-04 because it is the third business day:

  date	business day
  2022-04-01 Fri	yes (1)
  2022-04-02 Sat	yes (2)
  2022-04-03 Sun	no
  2022-04-04 Mon	yes (3)	latest possible receipt

• The contract then terminates at the end of the month after the next, i.e. April → May → June: 2022-06-30.

Answer 2

Someone with the German background informed me that this means if you want to move out at the end of March, you should inform the landlord not later than the third working day in January. In other words, you need to inform them 3 months in advance.

Answer 3

The quoted language (whch I have verified is the complete text in the relevant FAQ section on the linked web site) is not as clear as one might wish, or as a contractual provision should be.

It defines a period relative to a starting date, but does not define what that starting date is.

If the starting date were, say 15 March, then the month after next would be May, the end of the month after next would be 31 May, and the third working day after that would probably be somewhere between 3 June and 6 June, depending on what day of the week 1 June falls on, and whether there are any public holidays early in June . A "working day" is normally a day that is not a Saturday, a Sunday, nor a Holiday.

The quoted provision is odd, in that it gives the latest date when the tenancy can be terminated. Usually a notice provision for a tenancy gives the earliest date on which the tenancy can be terminated, with language like:

The tenancy can be terminated only 60 days or more after the tenant gives notice.

I notice that the above quoted provision seems to be a translation of the provision given in the German-language version of the FAQ, which reads:

Das Mietverhältnis kann ausnahmsweise vor Ablauf der vertraglichen Zeit nur unter Darlegung besonderer Umstände beendet werden. Die Kündigung ist spätestens am dritten Werktag eines Kalendermonats zum Ablauf des übernächsten Monats zulässig. Zur Fristwahrung ist der Eingang entscheidend.

I do not know German well enough to determine if there is some clearer meaning in this version.

It might be that the start date intended is the date when the student moves in, or is admitted, but that is not clear to me.

Update after the comment by Awais Mirza

It does seem that the English version was produced by Google translate or some similar computer translation from the German version, and I gather that in the process the meaning was significantly distorted. Indeed the translation should have been checked by a human fluent in both German and English who could compare the meaning with that of the original. Particularly as, according to the question, this same English text formed part of the contract that was signed.

If the school authorities based their understanding on the German text, it would seem that there was no meeting of minds, and if such a case came to court, it might well be held that the provision was not legally valid as a contract, because the two parties did not agree to the same terms.