Good advice

Students can lose their entitlement to housing benefit if they take longer than necessary to complete their studies. This has now been decided by the Berlin Administrative Court (VG 21 K 144/22). In this case, a student who applied for housing benefit was in her 14th semester of her second degree and in her 20th semester at university. The application for housing benefit was rejected by the housing benefit authority of the district...

The community of heirs of Hedwig Adlon will not receive any compensation for her hotel expropriation in November 1949 for the time being, according to a ruling by the Berlin Administrative Court (VG 29 K 131/20). Hedwig Adlon was expropriated at the time as a result of the "Law on the Confiscation of Assets of War Criminals and Nazi Activists". According to the Berlin Administrative Court, she was accused, among other things, of...

A buyer purchases an undeveloped plot of land from a municipality. She is contractually obliged to bear the development costs. If this is the case, she only has to pay real estate transfer tax on the purchase price of the undeveloped property, but not on the purchase price including the development costs. This has now been announced by the Federal Fiscal Court (BFH) (ruling dated 28....

The state of Berlin has now finally failed in its attempt to protect houses from privatization by exercising its right of first refusal in a so-called milieu protection area in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has issued a ruling to this effect (III ZR 217/20). This shows that the appeal against the non-admission of the appeal was rejected.

Real estate may no longer be paid for with cash, precious metals such as gold and silver or diamonds. In addition, a real estate transaction database based on information from notarial deeds is to be created in the near future. The measures are intended to combat crime and money laundering. In addition, foreign companies that acquire real estate property in Germany are...

A case in which a bunch of grapes played a decisive role has now made it to the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) (VI ZR 1283/20). In November 2018, a customer wanted to go shopping in a furniture store in Kiel. She slipped on a bunch of grapes lying on the floor, fell and suffered such serious injuries that she ultimately had to have a hip endoprosthesis implanted...

If the eviction of a mentally ill tenant would lead to suicidal intent, the landlord must continue the tenancy for an indefinite period. This has now been decided by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH; case reference: VIII ZR 390/21). In this case, an owner wanted to terminate his tenant's lease on the grounds of personal use in order to combine two apartments for himself and his partner and thus prevent him from...

BHW-Bausparkasse may not charge an annual fee during the savings phase of home loan and savings contracts. This was recently decided by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH, AZ: XI ZR 551/21). In this case, the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (vzbv) had filed a lawsuit against the building society in question. The building society had demanded an annual fee of 12 euros from its customers with a building society account. Wrongly, as the BGH...

A property seller cannot necessarily be held responsible for the remediation of a property if contaminated sites are suspected there. This is because it is necessary to check in advance whether the soil is actually contaminated. This has now been decided by the Federal Court of Justice (V ZR 213/21) and therefore referred the case back to the Munich Higher Regional Court (OLG). In the case in question, a...

When tenants move into a new apartment, they automatically receive electricity from a basic supplier - unless they opt for an optional supplier. But what happens if a tenant has opted for an optional supplier, but the meter numbers of two neighboring apartments are mixed up? The Frankfurt am Main district court has now ruled on this. In the case in question, the...