Apartment owners are actually obliged to jointly maintain their property. The BGH is now sounding out whether this also applies if the property is completely run down.
For property owners, it is worth taking a look at Karlsruhe this Friday. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) wants to announce a ruling on the redevelopment of scrap real estate by a community of owners.
According to the law, the renovation obligation does not apply if a building is “destroyed to more than half of its value”. At the hearing in September, however, the presiding judge of the fifth civil senate, Christina Stresemann, said that this should only mean real destruction by fire or flooding – and not decay. Even a completely run-down property must therefore in all likelihood be renovated by the community of owners if further use would otherwise be impossible. Even a possible economic overload of individual owners could not lead to a refurbishment, said Stresemann.
The owners’ association Haus & Grund is eagerly awaiting the verdict. There will not be tens of thousands of such cases in which a community of owners has let a property expire, said Federal Managing Director Gerold Happ of the German Press Agency. Whether the BGH regulates the matter in general or whether each individual case has to be examined is relevant for the industry. It cannot be that some owners of the community, by doing nothing, torpedo the efforts of others to renovate and deprive them of their rights.
According to Christian Osthus from the Real Estate Association Germany IVD, the central question is whether cases of obsolescence and / or lack of maintenance and repair of the building also represent destruction within the meaning of the law. Since such advanced decay occurs primarily in unused buildings, the Deputy Federal Managing Director assumes that the case can only be transferred to buildings that are not used for living. “The fact that an inhabited residential building is officially declared unusable is likely to be the exception,” explained Osthus.
The reason for the proceedings in Karlsruhe is a dispute over a dilapidated parking garage in Augsburg with 550 parking spaces on eleven floors. Most of it has been shut down, which means that visitors to a nearby convention center will not be able to park. A GmbH wants to rent its three levels to a hotel. The majority of the other owners – including two major owners – had decided to ban the use of the entire car park due to deficiencies in fire protection.
A joint restructuring is not planned, the GmbH could only act at its own expense. So far, however, the GmbH had tried in vain before courts. The Munich Regional Court I had recently decided that, as an exception, the renovation could be dispensed with. Their costs are estimated at 4.9 million euros. That is over a million more than the parking garage is worth. Judge Stresemann advised the owners to come to an agreement. That would also be the prerequisite for the dissolution of the community.
The case is rather special. “Everything that we set up here in terms of principles will also apply to apartments,” said Stresemann. After preliminary deliberations, her Senate therefore found a more generous interpretation of the law problematic. The judges see the danger that the apartment will be withdrawn from the owner – for example because a stairwell that is in danger of collapsing is no longer allowed to be entered.
“If the BGH comes to the conclusion that there could be destruction in cases of neglected repair, the decision could lead to more dispute, in which the degree of omission is disputed,” said Osthus from the IVD.
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
