The house has been handed over, the purchase price has been paid. It is now clear, after individual legal clarification, that the German sale is to be unwound. Your preparations need a new subject: the current state on both sides. An old copy of the handover record and the purchase price at that time may no longer fully describe this state.
This article does not examine a ground for rescission and does not set a rescission period. It presupposes a concrete specialist clarification. If a rescission declaration is initially contested, advice must first assess this starting question.
What has actually happened since completion
Our editorial recommendation: compile who received which payments and services in kind, when possession and keys were handed over and how the property has been used since. Keep the related receipts. This does not already acknowledge or quantify a claim.
Also describe observable changes: work carried out, removed items, newly assumed obligations or interim rentals. The advice will decide which facts are legally relevant. A list only of the original contractual performances leaves this subsequent development invisible.
The statutory restoration is more than a bank transfer
§ 346 BGB provides, in the case of a rescission covered there, for the restitution of received performances and the handing over of derived fruits. The provision also regulates compensation for value, exceptions and further possible claims. [BGB-346] From this it does not yet follow for your case that purchase price, reimbursement amount and all costs are to be equated across the board.
§ 348 BGB determines that the fulfilment of the rescission obligations is to be performed simultaneously (Zug um Zug). [BGB-348] How this is carried out in respect of the specific property including ownership, securities and payment must be shaped by the competent legal and notarial advice. A private key return does not replace this overall clarification.
An invented case with proceeds already spent
A seller has used the received purchase price to pay off his previous loan and has applied part of it elsewhere. The buyer has moved into the house and had work carried out. Both would like to return to the former state as quickly as possible.
The seller discloses which funds are actually available. The buyer documents use and changes. The advice brings these details together with the legal and land register status. This article treats neither the procurement of funds as automatically secured nor every amount spent as compensable.
Document the entire return process in writing
Request a comprehensible procedure that names the interdependent performances. Record which figures have been checked, which agreement is still missing and which steps are being prepared by specialists. Fee and tax consequences will be submitted separately for review; this text does not promise automatic reimbursement by an authority.
Only after specialist confirmation of completion will the matter be recorded as closed. This ensures that an unwinding becomes an orderly act of execution in its own right and does not remain at the notion that an already completed house purchase can be played backwards by simply refunding a single old payment.