Multi-house system
In German condominium law, one speaks of a multi-house system when the individual property of a condominium association is located in more than one building. Compared to the standard case of apartment ownership (namely a building with several apartments), there are partly different interests of the apartment owners in a multi-house complex - due to the other situation.
The Condominium Act does not contain any (direct) rules for such more complex cases, but it does offer the possibility of including differentiated and factual-adapted agreements between the owners in the community order.
Manifestations
Several houses (buildings) can stand on the common property of the apartment owners association . They can stand individually with a lateral distance, two or more houses can be built together. A house can have one or more apartments.
The duplex is a simple and very common case of a multi-house system. These are two (often almost mirror-symmetrical) houses that are built next to each other. (Most of them are single-family houses, but there can also be two or more apartments in each semi-detached house.)
If more than two houses are built together, one speaks of row houses .
Any mixed forms are also possible.
Reasons for choosing the form of condominium ownership
Semi-detached houses or terraced houses are z. B. built in the form of residential property if a piece of land cannot be divided into two or more (independent) pieces of land for legal reasons (by so-called real division). In the case of individual houses (e.g. single-family houses) on a shared property, the reason may be that the boundary distances (spacing areas) required for real division cannot be observed.
Problem situation for the co-owners
The Condominium Act stipulates that the structural parts of a building (e.g. foundation, exterior walls, load-bearing and bracing interior walls, floor ceilings, roof, exterior windows and entrance doors) are jointly owned. In the absence of other effective agreements, the community has to bear the costs of the maintenance and repair of all buildings on the common property and also to decide whether and when such measures are taken. (In principle, every co-owner also has a right of joint use of all common property.)
In many cases, this is exactly what is not wanted in multi-house systems. When two single-family houses are built on a shared property in the form of apartment ownership, the ideas of the co-owners are often that each co-owner should be responsible for "his" house as a whole (also in terms of costs). From a factual point of view, this can be entirely appropriate because there are individually very different ideas about which measures costs for the maintenance (care) of the house should be spent and when repairs are necessary or appropriate.
Solution with an adapted community order
The apartment owners cannot change the fact that the structural parts of all buildings are jointly owned by all co-owners, because this is a mandatory legal requirement. However, the aspects that are important in practice can be regulated differently from the law by agreement ( community order ). This applies to both the right to decide on building maintenance and the obligation to bear the corresponding costs. The basic right of the other co-owners of joint property can also be restricted by granting special rights of use for the respective apartment owner (s).
If there are several residential properties per building, sub-communities with (limited) decision-making authority for the administration of the respective building can be formed in this way , but which cannot acquire (partial) legal capacity.
literature
- Bärmann: Condominium Act. Commentary , 10th edition, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57308-8
- Jennißen (Ed.): Apartment Ownership Act , Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-504-45062-5
- Röll / Sauren: Handbook for apartment owners and administrators, 9th edition, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-504-45708-2
