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Ruling: Property tax apportioned to the tenant is to be added under trade tax law 

The Federal Fiscal Court (BFH) has ruled that the property tax owed by the landlord, but contractually passed on to the commercial tenant, is part of the rent. Therefore, according to the BFH, it must be added to the profit for trade tax purposes. In this case, the plaintiff, a GmbH, had rented a business premises from its shareholders. In the rental agreement, it was agreed that the plaintiff...

Contract: Tenant must inform himself comprehensively about content 

The lessor of a listed manor house does not have to protect the interests of the lessee in the pre-contractual clarification and relieve him of the contractual risk. Instead, the tenant must examine and decide for himself whether the contract is advantageous for him or not. This is the conclusion reached by the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main (OLG). In the present case, the state leased...

Verdict: Suspended sentence for lawyer who sold real estate below value 

A lawyer in Lehel in Munich sold two apartments belonging to his client with dementia for well below their value, namely to his children. He was sentenced to a suspended sentence of two years for breach of trust by the lay assessor's court of the Munich district court. The verdict is not yet final. The apartments, which are worth 1,100,000 million and 1,300,000 million respectively, were...

Right of first refusal: BGH strengthens tenants' rights 

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has strengthened the pre-emption rights of tenants in a recent ruling (VIII ZR 305/20). In this case, a tenant of a 46.60 square meter unrenovated apartment in an apartment building in Berlin, which the owner divided into condominium units, wanted to exercise her right of first refusal. According to the purchase agreement, she was to pay 163,266.67...

Ruling: ATM in apartment building may remain 

The residents of an apartment building in Ratingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, are worried that an ATM in the building could be blown up. The reason for this is that there are repeated reports in the media about ATMs being blown up. The owner of the apartment building therefore asked the bank to remove the ATM. However, he was already on...

Judgment: Rent debts of basic security recipients 

Landlords cannot make claims against the Jobcenter if a basic income support recipient owes them rent. This was recently decided by the Lower Saxony-Bremen Regional Social Court (LSG). In the case in question, an owner rented apartments to recipients of basic income support and, as a precautionary measure, had them agree to the direct payment of rent by the job center.

Ruling: Room rent must be paid despite corona-related cancellation 

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

Law: Murder not a reason to rescind a purchase contract 

A real estate purchase contract cannot be rescinded without further ado if a crime has been committed in the property and the buyer was unaware of this when signing the contract. This was recently decided by the Coburg Regional Court (Coburg Regional Court, judgment dated 06.10.2020, case reference: 11 O 92/20). In this case, a buyer had purchased a house in 2018. The seller had not told her about the...

Rent cap: Withheld amounts not a reason for immediate termination 

A landlord may not immediately give notice to a tenant who has withheld part of her rent due to the Berlin rent cap. This has now been decided by the Berlin Regional Court. In this case, the tenant had withheld part of the rent since March 2020 in reliance on the rent cap. She did not immediately pay back this part after the rent cap ended in spring 2021,...

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