Apartment owners may be obliged to jointly pay for damage in the complex, even if it only affects a single third-party apartment.
Such a regulation for building insurance is fundamentally legal, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled on Friday.
A higher deductible means lower insurance premiums, and everyone benefits from that.
So everyone would have to bear the costs together.
High deductible
According to the decision of the Karlsruhe judges, this also applies if the deductible is set particularly high due to unusually frequent damage: even then everyone would benefit from the fact that the system was insured at all.
(Ref. V ZR 69/21)
Homeowners insurance pays if a house is damaged or completely destroyed.
Damage caused by mains water, fire and natural hazards such as storms and hail are usually covered.
In this specific case, it was a large complex in Cologne with many smaller apartments and a large commercial unit.
Water damage often occurred in these apartments due to defective pipes.
The owners of the commercial unit have to pay a particularly large amount because of the large area they occupy, although they say they have never had water damage.
According to the BGH, a different distribution key could be justified if there are structural differences.
The Cologne district court must now examine this again.