Why is inheritance tax due even though you belong to the family and will live in the property yourself? Why do tenants on the ground floor have to pay for the dirt from the neighbors on the fourth floor? And who pays for broken items in the rented apartment? What has recently been disputed in German courts.
Moving in later
If you inherit a property and then use it yourself, you usually do not have to pay inheritance tax. But if you move into your house or apartment too late, you risk tax breaks. This happened to a woman who inherited an apartment, had it extensively renovated and only moved in 18 months after the inheritance – and was asked to pay the treasury. Rightly so, decided the tax court Düsseldorf (Az .: 4 K 2245/19), like the magazine NJW special reported. The heiress did not “immediately” take over the apartment as prescribed. If the move is only successful later than six months after the death of the testator, the heir must credibly explain what prevented him from earlier use. The court did not accept the arguments of the heiress that she had the apartment cleaned out by a private person who only had time on weekends, and that the renovation work was delayed because of the occupancy of the craft businesses. The heiress was aware of the considerable backlog of renovation and maintenance work on the apartment after the inheritance at the latest. You could have left the clearing out to a company and commissioned the craftsmen earlier, according to the court.
Expensive bearing damage
If it becomes too tight at home, a storage area can help. But if you store furniture elsewhere, you should pay attention to the contractual provisions: Is it a storage or rental agreement? Because that is important in the event of damage, as a decision by the Dresden Higher Regional Court shows (Az .: 5 U 2247/20), about which the magazine The real estate of the owners’ association Haus & Grund Berlin reports. In that case, a customer wanted to store furniture – also out of fear of flood damage. To do this, he has signed a rental agreement with a company. Since this did not have enough storage space itself, the items were placed in the hall of another company. When the customer picked up the things after a while, he found moisture damage and wanted to have the damage replaced in the amount of 12,800 euros. But it failed in court: In this case, a rental contract rather than a storage contract had been concluded. In contrast to a storage contract, the tenant stores the goods himself and cannot claim compensation.
Annoying modernization
Landlords can allocate part of the modernization costs to the rent. It is not uncommon for this to lead to a dispute, for example over the exchange of box double windows for insulating glass windows. Tenants have to tolerate this, as a judgment of the Berlin Regional Court shows (Az .: 67 S 108/19), which is also in The real estate was reported. In that case, a tenant had resisted the announced replacement of the windows. He could not comply with the requirements for heating and ventilation after replacing the windows – ventilating four times a day. Therefore, he is not obliged to tolerate the exchange. The court took a different view. The new windows will save energy; The fact that the savings are small here does not change anything in this matter. The leaflet also states that it should be ventilated “if possible” four times a day. In some cases, tenants can give reasons of hardship in order to prevent a modernization measure. But the ventilation, including turning the thermostats on and off, is at best a nuisance, but not harshness, according to the court.
Defective roller shutter
If something breaks in a rented apartment, the question often arises: Who has to pay for the damage? A ruling by the Stuttgart District Court now shows: If a landlord makes the tenant responsible, he must prove the damage (Az .: 32 C 2844/19). In the case that the magazine of the owners’ association Haus & Grund Berlin reported, it was about a defective roller shutter. The landlord wanted the tenant to reimburse the money for the repair because he had caused the damage. The tenant defended himself: he had always used the roller shutter in accordance with the contract and as intended and at no time had access to the roller shutter mechanism inside. The court agreed with the tenant. The landlord had to prove that the cause of the damage was to be found with the tenant. The landlord must also explain that the damage is not due to wear and tear. In this case, the roller shutter was more than 20 years old, so the mechanics were likely to wear out.
Clean stairwell
The costs for cleaning common rooms may be passed on to all tenants. It does not matter whether and how tenants use the rooms. So you have to pay in full for the stairwell cleaning even if you live on the ground floor and only use the basement stairs, decided the Brandenburg an der Havel district court (Az .: 31 C 295/19), as stated in the magazine The real estate called. In that case, the tenants did not want to pay the cost of cleaning the stairwell in full because they live on the ground floor. The court did not follow this line of argument. An allocation differentiated according to usage would be impractical, confusing and possibly also result in ongoing changes in the accounting, according to the court.