General

How can employees save energy in their home office? This is the question addressed by the consumer advice center "Verbraucherzentrale Energieberatung". It points out that, according to estimates, electricity consumption can increase by around five percent due to regular use of the laptop, desk lamp and electric stove, among other things. The additional costs thus amount to about 30 cents to 1 euro per day. In addition...

If a wedding celebration for which a location has already been rented has to be canceled due to the Corona pandemic, the couple still has to pay the room rent. This was recently decided by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH). In the case at hand, a couple from North Rhine-Westphalia had married in a civil ceremony on December 11, 2018, and planned a wedding celebration with 70 guests for May 1, 2020. The...

Increased home office working can save up to 3.7 million tons of climate-damaging greenhouse gases per year. That's according to a study by the Öko-Institut, which looks at the ecological and social impact of mobile working in the pandemic. The researchers also take into account the fact that commutes still have to be made at times. Independently...

Real estate in large cities has yielded lower returns than real estate in smaller cities over the past 150 years. This is the finding of "ECONtribute Discussion Paper No. 31," published by a team led by economist Prof. Dr. Moritz Schularick, member of the Cluster of Excellence "ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy" at the University of Bonn. The team examined not only...

According to calculations by the Euroconstruct research group, to which the ifo Institute also belongs, the European construction industry has overcome the Corona slump. Euroconstruct thus expects construction volume to grow by 3.6 percent this year. According to Euroconstruct, construction volume had already grown by 5.6 percent in 2021, but fell by 4.7 percent in 2020. With a plus of 7.1 percent...

Together with the Association of the Thuringian Housing Industry (VWT), planners have developed a concept for the energy refurbishment of mass-produced residential buildings from the 1980s. This is being tested in a GDR panel building belonging to the Stadtroda housing association in Stadtroda, a small town in Thuringia. Among other things, the GDR panel building is to receive a new type of heat exchanger by 2023....

A real estate purchase contract cannot be rescinded without further ado if a crime has occurred in the property and the buyer did not know about it at the time of signing. This was recently decided by the Regional Court of Coburg (LG Coburg, judgment of 06.10.2020, file number: 11 O 92/20). In the case at hand, a buyer had purchased a house in 2018. The seller had not informed her of the...

The portal wohnen-magazin.de breaks down the costs of modernization measures. Under the "Modernize" tab, interested parties will find a tool in which they can once again choose between "Renovate for energy efficiency" and "Create living space". Under "Energetic renovation", for example, planned modernization measures such as "modernizing the heating system",...

62 percent of consumers fear that higher energy prices will weigh heavily on them. This is the result of a survey conducted by Kantar on behalf of the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (vzbv). In addition, according to the survey, 71 percent of consumers do not want insolvent low-income customers to have their electricity or gas cut off by the end of April 2022. In the telephone survey...

Prices for construction have recently risen enormously. According to the Federal Statistical Office, producer prices for building materials such as wood and steel in particular rose more sharply on average in 2021 than at any time since the survey began in 1949. Solid structural timber also became more expensive, by 77.3 percent compared with the previous year's average. Roof battens became 65.1 percent more expensive and...