Painting 90 sqm by amateurs - what would you estimate?

If you do not want to strain the relationship and want to leave with a clear conscience, then at least a conversation with the landlord is appropriate. Lay the cards on the table. I can understand that with 2 small children you don't exactly argue about painting. I already have enough with our one on the construction site.

I can’t imagine getting away with this cheaply here. Finding students who want and are able to paint is optimistic in my opinion. Even if someone actually says yes, that doesn’t mean they will actually show up. So the only options left are a professional company or doing it yourself. Maybe the landlord has an affordable painter on hand that can be paid? Our moving company also offered us painting. But that was very expensive. Otherwise, I could imagine starting a few weeks ahead to tape up as much as possible. For painting, we bought a spray machine. Wearing a full-body suit, the entire apartment (150m2 - including the basement) was whitewashed in no time (2 days). The landlord was really shocked when he saw it - it looked like new. But it has to be very well taped off.

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And yes, we will have to paint and renovate. We have lived here for over 5 years, we had the apartment painted and otherwise took it over as a first move-in, there are no fixed deadlines and we have always gotten along well with the landlord. Accordingly, we will not try to find any reason to avoid doing anything here, that is not our way.
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That we might agree with the next tenant that they do some painting and we give them money or materials is also an option. But then again the question would be: What do we give them?

But that's exactly the point, that either a contract states that "painting must be done" when moving out or that the apartment must be handed over "broom clean."

The new contracts nowadays are correspondingly fair and understandable, so that only broom-clean handover is required, because 1. the next tenant can decide the color they want on the walls themselves and 2. the landlord might want to renew the floor.

If you stick to contracts, it has nothing to do with it not being "their way" or "making up reasons" or "trying to weasel out"... old rental contracts were illogical regarding the final cleaning and are finally comprehensible now.

The lack of painting when moving out, of course, does not replace maintenance and care during the rental period.

If you haven't done anything about that in regard to the 3 or 5 years and it shows, then you will have to deal with it in the end.

Regards, Yvonne

Write it out at MyHammer.

Post it on myhammer.

Exactly. I posted a 100m² apartment for move-out renovation there, similar conditions, everything was white and in reasonably good condition. I received over 50 offers within a weekend, in the end a German interior decorator did it for €450 including materials and invoice. He wasn’t even the cheapest. Thanks to the declared labor costs, I can even deduct it from my taxes now. He worked properly, not quite at master painter level, but he covered everything neatly.

We also once advertised an apartment of almost 100 m² on myhammer. Including materials and invoiced, it cost somewhere between 400 and 500 euros. First-class quality, by the way, in that case. The landlord wanted the name of the painter.