For tenants of commercial properties, outdoor advertising plays an important role in attracting the attention of customers. In principle, tenants of commercial properties have a right to use outdoor advertising. This includes, for example, putting up posters on the outside wall, putting up customer stoppers or mounting signs on the facade. While the landlord of the property must permit and tolerate some advertising measures, he can prohibit certain projects. The regulations agreed in the rental agreement apply here.
The Hamburg Local Court (Amtsgericht Hamburg, AG) dismissed the claim of a tenant who demanded that the landlord tolerate a sign on the facade with the new business address after the end of the lease term (AZ 44 C 275/18). Since it was expressly agreed in the lease that at the end of the lease all outdoor advertising installations had to be dismantled and the pasted window panes had to be cleaned, the plaintiff had no claim to acquiescence. According to the court ruling, a sign with the new business address is to be regarded as an advertising measure, since the announcement of a new address is aimed at potential customers and is intended to promote the company's own sales. If no special agreement had been made in this respect in the lease, the plaintiff would have had a fundamental right to put up a sign.
Another case concerned the installation of large-scale neon signs on a commercial property. If no differentiated agreements have been made in the rental agreement, the installation of billboards is generally permitted under Section 535 (1) sentence 1 of the German Civil Code (BGB). The prerequisite for this is, among other things, that the place of installation is not defaced and corresponds to local custom. Thus, the Administrative Court of Munich (VG) ruled that a landlord was not obliged to tolerate an LED video advertising system of his tenant in four shop windows (AZ M 8 K 16.1426). The commercial property was a listed building, so that this advertising measure was to be considered as a defacement of the place of installation.
Source: AG Hamburg/VG Munich
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