4 ms·

I can only comment anecdotally, but my one experience with a German court was weird to say the least: I bought a house from a community of heirs and shortly sai

I can only comment anecdotally, but my one experience with a German court was weird to say the least: I bought a house from a community of heirs and shortly said, they have falsely disclosed that they were legally prepared to sell the house and the delays until they were ready incured quite some costs, but nothing critical, just a few thousand euros. I sued to recover the costs and the case got assigned to a high profile judge in the city (don't ask me why, as again we are talking about a few thousand euros), who dismissed the case with, I quote "I also sold a house as part of a community of heirs and we had everything in order and it still took several months, you should have expected this". Completely ignored proof that they lied (in writing) to make me sign the contract and that it took them more than several months just to start the process that then took several months to complete

medo-bear 3y ago
Are you American?
- kioleanu 3y ago
  I am not, why?
  - medo-bear 3y ago
    Because you bothered to take someone to court over something like that. Im not saying its not a shit go by the seller (it is!) but why bother
    - flumpcakes 3y ago
      Because it is thousands of euros lost by fraud?
      - usrusr 3y ago
        Taking a bit longer than you thought is many things, but it's not fraud.
        gwd 3y ago
        The person said: > they lied (in writing) to make me sign the contract Lying in order to cause someone else to do something they wouldn't otherwise do is fraud. Apparently, in this town it's common practice to say, "X is already done" when X hasn't yet been started -- even the judge does it! But it's the town and its standards which are screwed up, not the guy who expected to be told the truth. (This is all accepting his description of the situation prima facae, of course.)
        kioleanu 3y ago
        I was a litle vague on purpose, but this was some time ago, so I can provide some other details I think. Please note that the case presenteted to the judge was about 40 pages long, this is just a very condensed version. They needed a total of 30 documents and they said they had 28 of them, with the 2 remaining being non-critical and needed just to cover all bases. I analyzed the risks based on this information and acted accordingly with 2 things: one was signing the contract at the notary and the second was taking a bank loan. The contract was signed with the official representative of the community of heirs and would go into effect after all other heirs have signed it, which was supposed to happen within 2 weeks. After 2 weeks I found out that not all heirs had their inhertiance papers (think 22 of 30 documents actually available) and one of those went no-contact because he had the smallest part and decided the effort isn't worth the money. After 6 months, since the contract wasn't in effect, I haven't accessed the money from the bank, so the bank started issuing a fine (as per the contract I signed with them) of about 1000 Euros monthly (it's called Bereitstellungsprovision), which went for some months until they got their shit together. Had I known that they didn't have all documents ready, I would not have entered the contract. Or I could have negotiated with the bank for a longer period to access the money.
        usrusr 3y ago
        That would quality as fraud if the representative knew that the remaining coinheritors would block and if they gained something from the delay (some kickback setup from that back fee? The world we live in is crazy but it's not that crazy). The way you describe it reads as if the inheritor representative might have been just as surprised by the delay. Incompetence, and possibly being on the hook for the bank penalty due to that incompetence (or not, that's far beyond my judicial capability) but certainly not fraud. Perhaps a more experienced buyer would have added some penalty clause to hedge against the idle money issue (banks don't like a delay between money availability and purchase of the collateral, that's a common issue I think), but since the problem is (was, I hope?) that the contract itself did not happen in time that surely wouldn't be easy (some multi-stage monstrosity, ouch). Unless they lied to get some advantage it can't really be fraud. (and what advantage would it be anyways? If the market price rose during the delay the sellers might even suffer a bigger net loss than that bank penalty ... I guess that would be a way it could become fraud, if they then suddenly refused signing, to sell to a higher bidder, abusing the delay for a safe market bet) I suspect that this entire class of issues is a common pitfall people who routinely deal with real estate are well aware of, one of the risks kept in check by experience and taking the occasional blow.
      - medo-bear 3y ago
        I don't know the specifics. But I live in an Eastern European EU country. The usual process is the buyer gives 10% of the selling price deposit and specifies the date by when the contract must be completed (usually 3 months). If either party does not honour the contract they pay the fee equal to the ammount of the deposit. This is usually much more than few thousand euros. Moreover the title deeds are publically available. The usual practice is to not hand over any deposit until the buyer is satisfied that the title deeds are all in order.
        scns 3y ago
        Interesting, first time i hear about this. Great solution to prevent fraud.
        ilyt 3y ago
        Usually (well, here in Poland) it's around 10% of value, that buyer loses if they change mind but seller have to pay 2x if they back off. Then usually after signing that you can get the mortgage (at the very least it is much easier if bank gets the papers showing you're in progress of buying home). After you sign the final deal, you pay and you are then written down (and bank, if you buy with mortgage) into land and mortgage register (which in my language is just called "perpetual book", funnily enough). There is a bit more complexity when buying some old stuff that might not have entry in the registry, like my grand-grandfather house only have some documents for getting land from government after war and then them giving it to grandchildren few decades ago
        pmontra 3y ago
        > Usually (well, here in Poland) it's around 10% of value, that buyer loses if they change mind but seller have to pay 2x if they back off. Same procedure in Italy with the difference that there is no mandated amount. Of course the higher it is the less likely is that the seller backs out of the deal.
    - ExoticPearTree 3y ago
      Your opinion looks like to be you should only sue someone if they rip you off royally, not "just a few thousand euros". I'm not sure from you are from, but in any country you can sue anyone or call the police on them even for an euro or a dollar or whatever the currency is. Fraud is fraud no matter the monetary value.
      - medo-bear 3y ago
        I think it is quite possible the the buyer didnt do sufficient homework. It is also quite possible that the seller had reasonable grounds to think that everything is in order but got side swiped by German bureocracy. It is also possible that the buyer wanted to take advantage of a simple mistake and started yelling "fraud!". Maybe he would have fared much better had he saught legal advice before entering such a large financial commitment, and saved himself the time and effort of going to court.
        kioleanu 3y ago
        that is a truck-load of assumptions
        medo-bear 3y ago
        possibilities* yet accusation of fraud is not an assumption?
        Dylan16807 3y ago
        I think it's fair to say that an accusation in court is not an assumption, yes.
        medo-bear 3y ago
        you must have an assumption in order to have an accusation, what's not clear?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
calmoo 3y ago
I find in general this is the attitude in Germany - if you complain about some needlessly complex bureaucratic procedure here, or even just in general about something that is negative about Germany - people will usually say something along the lines of "But of course it is like this, because X, Y, Z". I find the attitude in another countries tend to be a bit more reflective and open to criticism - here, everything is the way it is, because.. it is?
- rendaw 3y ago
  Is there a word for this argument? You see it a lot on stack overflow etc too, like "Why do I have to do X" "Because Y requires you to provide this information"
  - dustypotato 3y ago
    Circular reasoning?
- chironjit 3y ago
  Living in germany for a year now, and holy cow how Germans backwards rationalise so many things this way. Like wtf, how can the powerhouse of Europe be so thick?

medo-bear 3y ago

Are you American?

kioleanu 3y ago
I am not, why?
- medo-bear 3y ago
  Because you bothered to take someone to court over something like that. Im not saying its not a shit go by the seller (it is!) but why bother
  - flumpcakes 3y ago
    Because it is thousands of euros lost by fraud?
    - usrusr 3y ago
      Taking a bit longer than you thought is many things, but it's not fraud.
      - gwd 3y ago
        The person said: > they lied (in writing) to make me sign the contract Lying in order to cause someone else to do something they wouldn't otherwise do is fraud. Apparently, in this town it's common practice to say, "X is already done" when X hasn't yet been started -- even the judge does it! But it's the town and its standards which are screwed up, not the guy who expected to be told the truth. (This is all accepting his description of the situation prima facae, of course.)
      - kioleanu 3y ago
        I was a litle vague on purpose, but this was some time ago, so I can provide some other details I think. Please note that the case presenteted to the judge was about 40 pages long, this is just a very condensed version. They needed a total of 30 documents and they said they had 28 of them, with the 2 remaining being non-critical and needed just to cover all bases. I analyzed the risks based on this information and acted accordingly with 2 things: one was signing the contract at the notary and the second was taking a bank loan. The contract was signed with the official representative of the community of heirs and would go into effect after all other heirs have signed it, which was supposed to happen within 2 weeks. After 2 weeks I found out that not all heirs had their inhertiance papers (think 22 of 30 documents actually available) and one of those went no-contact because he had the smallest part and decided the effort isn't worth the money. After 6 months, since the contract wasn't in effect, I haven't accessed the money from the bank, so the bank started issuing a fine (as per the contract I signed with them) of about 1000 Euros monthly (it's called Bereitstellungsprovision), which went for some months until they got their shit together. Had I known that they didn't have all documents ready, I would not have entered the contract. Or I could have negotiated with the bank for a longer period to access the money.
        usrusr 3y ago
        That would quality as fraud if the representative knew that the remaining coinheritors would block and if they gained something from the delay (some kickback setup from that back fee? The world we live in is crazy but it's not that crazy). The way you describe it reads as if the inheritor representative might have been just as surprised by the delay. Incompetence, and possibly being on the hook for the bank penalty due to that incompetence (or not, that's far beyond my judicial capability) but certainly not fraud. Perhaps a more experienced buyer would have added some penalty clause to hedge against the idle money issue (banks don't like a delay between money availability and purchase of the collateral, that's a common issue I think), but since the problem is (was, I hope?) that the contract itself did not happen in time that surely wouldn't be easy (some multi-stage monstrosity, ouch). Unless they lied to get some advantage it can't really be fraud. (and what advantage would it be anyways? If the market price rose during the delay the sellers might even suffer a bigger net loss than that bank penalty ... I guess that would be a way it could become fraud, if they then suddenly refused signing, to sell to a higher bidder, abusing the delay for a safe market bet) I suspect that this entire class of issues is a common pitfall people who routinely deal with real estate are well aware of, one of the risks kept in check by experience and taking the occasional blow.
    - medo-bear 3y ago
      I don't know the specifics. But I live in an Eastern European EU country. The usual process is the buyer gives 10% of the selling price deposit and specifies the date by when the contract must be completed (usually 3 months). If either party does not honour the contract they pay the fee equal to the ammount of the deposit. This is usually much more than few thousand euros. Moreover the title deeds are publically available. The usual practice is to not hand over any deposit until the buyer is satisfied that the title deeds are all in order.
      - scns 3y ago
        Interesting, first time i hear about this. Great solution to prevent fraud.
      - ilyt 3y ago
        Usually (well, here in Poland) it's around 10% of value, that buyer loses if they change mind but seller have to pay 2x if they back off. Then usually after signing that you can get the mortgage (at the very least it is much easier if bank gets the papers showing you're in progress of buying home). After you sign the final deal, you pay and you are then written down (and bank, if you buy with mortgage) into land and mortgage register (which in my language is just called "perpetual book", funnily enough). There is a bit more complexity when buying some old stuff that might not have entry in the registry, like my grand-grandfather house only have some documents for getting land from government after war and then them giving it to grandchildren few decades ago
        pmontra 3y ago
        > Usually (well, here in Poland) it's around 10% of value, that buyer loses if they change mind but seller have to pay 2x if they back off. Same procedure in Italy with the difference that there is no mandated amount. Of course the higher it is the less likely is that the seller backs out of the deal.
  - ExoticPearTree 3y ago
    Your opinion looks like to be you should only sue someone if they rip you off royally, not "just a few thousand euros". I'm not sure from you are from, but in any country you can sue anyone or call the police on them even for an euro or a dollar or whatever the currency is. Fraud is fraud no matter the monetary value.
    - medo-bear 3y ago
      I think it is quite possible the the buyer didnt do sufficient homework. It is also quite possible that the seller had reasonable grounds to think that everything is in order but got side swiped by German bureocracy. It is also possible that the buyer wanted to take advantage of a simple mistake and started yelling "fraud!". Maybe he would have fared much better had he saught legal advice before entering such a large financial commitment, and saved himself the time and effort of going to court.
      - kioleanu 3y ago
        that is a truck-load of assumptions
        medo-bear 3y ago
        possibilities* yet accusation of fraud is not an assumption?
        Dylan16807 3y ago
        I think it's fair to say that an accusation in court is not an assumption, yes.
        medo-bear 3y ago
        you must have an assumption in order to have an accusation, what's not clear?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

calmoo 3y ago

I find in general this is the attitude in Germany - if you complain about some needlessly complex bureaucratic procedure here, or even just in general about something that is negative about Germany - people will usually say something along the lines of "But of course it is like this, because X, Y, Z". I find the attitude in another countries tend to be a bit more reflective and open to criticism - here, everything is the way it is, because.. it is?

rendaw 3y ago
Is there a word for this argument? You see it a lot on stack overflow etc too, like "Why do I have to do X" "Because Y requires you to provide this information"
- dustypotato 3y ago
  Circular reasoning?
chironjit 3y ago
Living in germany for a year now, and holy cow how Germans backwards rationalise so many things this way. Like wtf, how can the powerhouse of Europe be so thick?