Heritable building right - an alternative?

Hello everyone,

what is your opinion on the topic of leasehold? A few days ago, I found my personal dream house. It is an existing property from 1996 that meets every conceivable requirement.

The small "catch" is that it is leasehold. That means the house basically stands on someone else's land (belongs to the church) and you pay a monthly ground rent to use the property.

From your point of view, would this be a deal-breaker for buying a house, or can one still feel reasonably secure with it?

I am not quite sure right now. So far, I was of the opinion that leasehold is not an option, but the house is really close to being the perfect house and now I am starting to consider whether one might perhaps overlook this. Possibly there is also the option to acquire the land later.

What do you think about it? Do you have any tips and information for me?

If it is THE house, why not. Sure, with a heritable building right you don't really own the land, but what difference does that make in practice. No one will evict you from your property, the lease agreement is long-term, the church thinks in different timeframes anyway, so it doesn't make much difference compared to buying. It's more a matter of mindset. Then the price has to be right, heritable building rights are usually a bit cheaper.

Heritable building right is a completely normal "thing" - you "rent" the land for a period of time (usually) the heritable building right runs for 99 years from granting. Same rights and obligations as a normal landowner - special features could be stated in the heritable building right contract. You need to take out fewer loans but may pay a higher heritable building rent compared to the current loan interest rate.

One just has to make sure not to compare apples and oranges and thus miscalculate the value of the house. Compared to other existing properties, the purchase price should actually be lower by the price of the land.

Since I have been searching irregularly for a while, I can say that the semi-detached house in terms of size and equipment is about 25,000 - 50,000€ cheaper than comparable properties where the land price is included.
Since, I believe, the rule of thumb is that the annual ground rent is about 5% of the land value, with the specified land size (304 sqm) and the ground rent to be paid (833€/a), this would be a really good price.

However, the price is also stated in the offer and in brackets "frei bleibend". Is that then an action like "whoever offers the most gets the house"?

Heritable building rights are very difficult to evaluate, especially when replacing an existing contract. In that case, it may be appropriate to involve an appraiser/expert with relevant experience.

For me personally, heritable building rights would be a deal breaker, however, the church is a quite reliable partner, they have been doing this for 1000 years. One should also not reliably speculate on being able to purchase the property later. That is almost impossible.

Best regards
Dirk Grafe