The Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG) has partially overturned the right of first refusal for properties in Berlin and thus upheld the complaint of a real estate company. The right of first refusal is normally intended to ensure that properties are not bought up and tenants move away - for example due to renovation measures that result in higher rents.<\/p>\n
In this case, the real estate company had filed a lawsuit against the exercise of the municipal right of first refusal. It had acquired an apartment building in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg containing 20 rental apartments and two commercial units. The apartment building is located on a plot of land which, according to the BVerwG, serves to protect the composition of the residential population for special urban development reasons. This practice is also referred to as \"milieu protection statutes\". The action was not successful in the lower courts, but was successful before the BVerwG.<\/p>\n
The court justified its decision by stating that, according to Section 26 No. 4 Alt 2 of the German Building Code, \"the exercise of the right of first refusal is excluded if the property is developed and used in accordance with the objectives or purposes of the urban development measures and a building erected on it does not show any defects or deficiencies [...]\". The German Tenants' Association criticizes: \"In other words, the municipality may only assert the right of first refusal in the milieu protection area if it is a scrap property that is not fit for purpose.\"<\/p>\n
Sources: BVerwG\/Mieterbund\/wavepoint
\n \u00a9 Fotolia\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG) has partially overturned the right of first refusal for properties in Berlin and thus upheld the complaint of a real estate company. The right of first refusal is normally intended to ensure that houses are not bought up and the tenants move away - for example due to renovation measures that result in higher rents. In this case, the real estate company had filed a suit against [...]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guter-rat"],"yoast_head":"\n