Clifford Chance

Newsletter, Real Estate, english, 'Spring 2011'

7 June 2011

The spring edition of our Real Estate Newsletter focuses on climate protection, unwelcome trends such as the steady increase in real estate transfer tax rates, as well as aspects of loan security law.

In their guest contribution entitled "Real estate as the key factor in a sustainable EU energy policy", Martin Lemke, Managing Director of PATRIZIA Investmentmanagement GmbH and Chairman of the FIEC "Housing" working group (European Construction Industry Federation), and Julia Schöne, Head of the Brussels office of the Bundesverband Freier Immobilien- und Wohnungsunternehmen e.V., the German federation representing private housing and real estate companies, highlight the impact of EU trends and guidelines on real estate and climate protection from an economic perspective.

Dr. Gerold Jaeger and Henning Aufderhaar discuss the draft Landlord and Tenant Law Amendment Act on the energy modernisation of rented accommodation and the simplified enforcement of eviction orders from the autumn of 2010. The draft has met with strong criticism and is currently undergoing revision with an amended version of the draft bill expected to be tabled shortly. We will keep you posted on the latest developments.

Thorsten Sauerhering and Dr. Dominik Engl describe the unwelcome steady increase in real estate transfer tax rates which may be set by German states following an amendment to the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) in 2006.

Last but not least, Christian Trenkel and Alexandra Schlicht consider so-called ‘agreements on satisfaction’ between borrowers and lenders to limit the utilisation of real estate, except through compulsory auction, under the heading "Loan security law".

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