The presiding judge Christian Odenbreit on Thursday in the Brandenburg Higher Regional Court Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa
From BZ/dpa
A family from Rangsdorf south of Berlin has to leave the home they built themselves and hand over the property to the owner because of a faulty foreclosure auction.
In addition, the family must have the house demolished within a year. This was decided by the 5th Senate of the Brandenburg Higher Regional Court in its judgment announced on Thursday. In addition, the family has to pay compensation to the owner for the use of the property. An appeal against the judgment was not admitted.
The family had acquired the approximately 1000 square meter property in 2010 at a foreclosure auction in the district court of Luckenwalde. The building land was auctioned off because the heir to the property owed the city of Freiburg and was allegedly unavailable. After the family took out large loans and built their house there, the heir came forward and claimed the property back in court.
The Potsdam Regional Court then ruled in 2014 that the district court had failed to sufficiently search for the heir. Therefore, the foreclosure is not legal and the heir continues to be the owner of the property. This was confirmed by the Higher Regional Court and the surrender of the property including compensation has now been ordered.
Justice Minister Susanne Hoffmann (CDU) had already announced in the state parliament’s legal committee that the state would compensate the family for the error of the district court.