The purchase contract has been prepared or already notarised. You want to inform the tenants of your German flat early about who will be responsible in future. The phrase “I have transferred ownership” is easily tempted. This statement deserves particular care: § 566e BGB assigns a landlord’s notification of the transfer of ownership its own effects with regard to the rent claim.
What status do you actually want to communicate?
Our editorial recommendation: First write down internally which event is confirmed. Is there a planned sale, a concluded contract or a transfer of ownership confirmed by the competent authority? What practical information do the tenants need at which time? A purchase price receipt, a key date and a transfer of ownership should not be equated linguistically without verification.
Have the intended notification coordinated with the actual processing. This article does not provide a template letter for that purpose. It cannot assess whether particular formulations in your case already contain a specific declaration.
Know the special rule of § 566e
If the landlord informs the tenant that he has transferred ownership of the rented residential premises to a third party, he must accept the stated transfer as binding with regard to the rent claim against himself, even if it has not occurred or is ineffective. Withdrawal of the notification requires, under paragraph 2, the consent of the person designated as the new owner. [BGB-566e]
This is not a blanket rule for every message about a planned sale. The content and circumstances of the actual notification are decisive. Nor does this perform a conclusive payment or ownership check from the tenant’s perspective.
An invented premature dispatch
After a notary appointment that goes well, a seller writes to the tenant party that the buyer is now the owner and the next rent should be paid to him. Later the completion is delayed. The seller wants to withdraw the message with a brief “never mind”.
He should now provide the full course of events to the competent legal advice: original letter, dispatch status, replies, actual processing and any payments. The article does not recommend an independent recovery or contradictory second payment instruction. In particular the question of withdrawal must be clarified on the basis of the concrete declaration.
Treat communication as a processing step
Assign preparation, specialist coordination and dispatch to a specific responsible person. Keep the version actually used with the date. A draft in a folder does not prove what the tenant party received.
If there are several tenancies, each notification must match the correct unit and the intended contact person. Check practical details before dispatch. Unresolved account details must not simply be adopted from an incidental message.
Do not improvise a correction
If a possibly incorrect notification has already been sent, first secure its exact content and the known course of events. Then clarify the legally appropriate way to correct it with the necessary parties. A further quick message can make the matter more complicated if it contains new unchecked information.
This way the information to the tenants becomes a consciously prepared part of the sale. You report the confirmed status with a formulation to match it, instead of unintentionally turning a well-meant early hint into a further-reaching declaration.