Contracts on real estates
Land, house, condominium

As a potential buyer of a house, a condo or a building plot, you agreed with the seller about the price and the handover (=payment) date and with a bank on the financing?

In Germany, in opposition to many countries abroad, you can enter into a land property purchase agreement only with a notarial instrument. The notary is the state-appointed neutral and expert consultant. This ensures that the seller will receive the purchase price and the buyer the unencumbered property. The Notary does the entire handling of the contract. Because the buyer pays the costs of the purchase agreement, he normally selects the notary.

To create a purchase agreement for a plot of land or a condominium, I need the following data:

• Buyers and sellers: names, Dates of birth, addresses and tax identification numbers (if provided; eleven digits in the format 99 999 999 999)
• Land property: location (Amtsgericht <local court>, land registry folio number)
• Purchase price
  - Partially financed?
  - Optionally: sold with inventory?
• Maturity of the purchase price (= transfer of possession)
• Land (vacant lot, house, condominium, [partial] leasehold)
  - Stands empty / is inhabited by the seller / is rented (tenants, security deposit?)
  - Condominiums: Manager, if his approval is required

Here is a form you can complete and fax to me. Or copy the content into an email and complete.

With this information, I can look up the Land Registry electronically (if in North Rhine Westphalia) and create the draft of the purchase agreement within an hour and send it to you by e-mail or facsimile. With regard to the time needed by the Land Registry to record a priority notice of conveyance for the buyer and to get regulatory approvals, due date of the purchase price should be no earlier than at least one month after the notarization. Before the notarization, all participants must identify and (for the land purchase tax) specify their tax ID number (if existing).

A part of the questions that might occur after receipt of the draft, I hope to have cleared in this Land purchase lexikon (not yet translated into English, try Google translator).

A preliminary land purchase contract, which is sometimes desirable or even signed at some brokers, is invalid, sec. 311b of the German Civil Code, if not notarized. This would double the costs. Suitably, in such cases, you should notarize immediately and reserve the right to withdraw in the case of uncertainties.

Terminology:

Subject of the contract may be

• Land (undeveloped)
• Land (with construction, the house legally belongs to the property and can not be subject of an isolated contract))
• Co-ownership of a plot, linked to the "private property" of a condominium or the "partial ownership" of a garage or a commercial space
• (Partial) leasehold - complicated thing, more on my site about leasehold (in German)

Expenses of land property purchase

The cost of the acquisition are to be payed by the buyer, the cost of the exemption of registered charges, insofar as they are not adopted, pays the seller.

Land purchase tax is (as at 01.06.2019) in North Rhine Westphalia, Brandenburg, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein 6,5% of the purchase price, in Berlin and Hesse 6%, in Hamburg 4,5%, in Bavaria and Saxony 3,5%, in all other states 5,0%.

Fee examples

Fees (in Euro, VAT and expenses included) for the purchase of a house or condominium to be payed by the buyer. Additional costs arise from the creation of a debt in land for a bank loan, if necessary.