Finally summer, finally the European Championship: The days are long, the temperatures are pleasant – the garden and balcony are perfect for barbecuing, watching football or just enjoying a nice glass of wine in the open air. But trouble is already inevitable. The good news: living together is meticulously regulated by law in Germany.
But these laws and regulations are complex. While the German Civil Code (BGB) forms the starting point for neighborhood law, various, sometimes very different, neighborhood law laws of the federal states supplement the regulations. Other states regulate the topic through implementing laws to the BGB.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, for example, does not have its own law governing neighbouring rights, but the “Arbitration and Conciliation Act” stipulates that “in the case of disputes over all claims arising from neighbouring rights”, a lawsuit is only permissible if an attempt has been made to settle the dispute amicably. Other federal states have also now introduced mandatory out-of-court dispute resolution, without which a lawsuit before the district court is not permissible. As you can see, it is complicated.
It’s difficult to keep track of everything – and it’s good when there’s help. That’s why we’ve fed our AI assistant WELTgo! with the relevant regulations and laws. How far away does the fruit tree have to be from the property line? What should you do if your neighbor’s rabbit raids the lettuce patch? And what exactly is the hammer and ladder law? WELTGgo! provides the answers. Try it out!
If you live in Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony or Saxony-Anhalt, you will find the right guide here.
If you live in Lower Saxony or Schleswig-Holstein, you will receive help here.
Residents of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Thuringia reach their destination here.
For everyone who lives in Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland or Baden-Württemberg, this is the way to go.
The fact that there are plenty of cases where the relevant regulations and laws are used is evident from the frequency with which courts (have to) deal with disputes between neighbors. Estimates range from as many as 300,000 lawsuits per year, of which around 10,000 actually lead to a trial. The range of disputed topics is also wide: the potpourri ranges from the neighbor who secretly feeds the cats across the street until they get fat and have to go to the vet to a young couple whose loud “yippee” calls during lovemaking kept the neighbors awake. You can find out more about this topic on our topic page.
And these are only the cases that actually end up in court – they do not include disputes that were resolved in mediation or otherwise out of court. At Ergo legal protection insurance, for example, a lawyer was called in in around 95 percent of disputes in 2023, and 90 percent of these disputes were settled without going to court.
And this is how it works: Our digital assistant WELTgo! is available exclusively for WELT subscribers and can currently only be used in the web version. App users are redirected to the browser, where they can log in with their login details. They can type questions into the input field or click on one of the suggested fields.
Our Neighbor Bot is based on artificial intelligence and can make mistakes (just as it obviously doesn’t provide legal advice). Feel free to give us feedback in the comments section of this article.