A tenant living in a terraced house may not simply drill holes in an exterior wall without asking his neighbor for permission in advance. This is the result of a ruling by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) (AZ: V ZR 25/21). In this case, the tenant (defendant) had drilled holes in an exterior wall to lay a power line for an electric awning.
Initially, the plaintiff, who also owns the apartment building, had written to his tenant asking him to restore the exterior wall to its original condition - but to no avail. The owner then went to court. The case then ended up first before the local court and the regional court and later before the Federal Supreme Court.
The BGH largely confirmed the decision of the Munich II Regional Court and justified it as follows, among other things: "The defendant is not entitled to interfere with the [...] wall, which is the sole property of the plaintiff, so that he is obliged to remove the cable duct and the drill holes in accordance with Section 1004 (1) sentence 1 BGB". The fact that the outer walls are separated by a joint is also decisive for the ruling. This meant that the wall shells could be clearly assigned to the respective building.
Source: BGH (AZ: V ZR 25/21)
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