Your Austrian property purchase has begun, funds may already have been paid into trust and a priority in the land register (Namensrangordnung) in favour of the lawyer acting as trustee has been prepared. That lawyer has now died. The matter requires an orderly continuation: account balance, documents, actual representative role and any still usable priority must all be clarified together.
This article deals with lawyer trust arrangements (anwaltliche Treuhand). It does not equate the death with a mere delayed email reply and does not decide any notarial succession.
Secure your complete current transaction status
Our editorial recommendation: gather the purchase contract, trust mandate, any existing notification or business numbers, payment receipts, bank documents and court disposals. Mark the last action that was actually confirmed. An announcement that an application will be submitted does not retrospectively become a secured submission.
Contact the competent Bar Association (Rechtsanwaltskammer) using reliably verified contact details. Have it clarified who will act for the affected firm in which capacity and how your specific matter should be allocated. A new person appearing in the previous correspondence does not by itself prove all authorities.
Distinguish securing the matter from full continuation
§34a RAO regulates, among other things, tasks of the chamber commissioner: to determine trusts, inform parties about the necessary handling by another trustee and to deal with third-party funds and held valuables. Proof of appointment and publication are also regulated. [FORTFUEHRUNG]
The article uses the version in force since August 2026. This contains in paragraph 5 also a special route via another lawyer as chamber commissioner (Rechtsanwaltskommissär). [FORTFUEHRUNG] Have the actual function that exists named. An organisational handover in your file does not automatically mean that every previous trust task has already been effectively re-assumed.
Check the specific land-register priority separately
§ 57a paragraph 4 GBG permits a priority in the land register (Namensrangordnung) in favour of a lawyer or notary as trustee. Paragraph 5 names, in the event of the death of the lawyer trustee, the appointed chamber commissioner and the required proof of appointment for its utilisation. [RANG]
Therefore include the actually existing land-register status and the associated resolutions in the continuation assessment. A new contractual adviser chosen at random does not become the designated beneficiary in your overview simply by replacing the name. Which specific continuation or transfer is required must be determined by the specialist review; other representation constellations are not equated as a matter of course.
Keep the existing time limits in view
§55 GBG governs the period of validity of the priority and the expiry date to be specified in the resolution. [FRIST] Submit that resolution together with all other time-limited bank and indemnity documents. In your planning do not assume a new full processing period merely because of the death.
Have it urgently clarified which action is necessary within the actually remaining timeframe. This article does not calculate an individual deadline and promises no extension. The general question “Who takes over the firm?” does not adequately answer this concrete priority point.
Fictitious case: new contact, old unsettled funds
A buyer receives notice that another firm will take care of the continuation. Her purchase price has already been received on the previous trust account; however the last status message still indicates outstanding land-register steps. She certainly does not want to make the same payment again or enter only the new contact as completion.
She has responsibility, account balance, document status and the next legally possible execution confirmed together. Required new mandates and payment changes are coordinated professionally. The case does not promise any particular refund nor unlimited insurance coverage. Its result is a comprehensible continuation of the specific purchase with a verified role and remaining visible outstanding conditions.