The building accessories must be considered in calculation of the broker's commission fee
> May 2015
Situation:The commission fee agreed between the parties was "7.14 % incl. statutory VAT of the purchasing price. The purchasing price was 435,000 EUR. The purchasing contract further stated that " … the sale includes the following objects: … . The part of the purchasing price allocated to these shall be 18,000 EUR". The defendant purchasers were invoiced the agreed commission fee at 31,059 EUR after conclusion of the mediated purchasing contract. The purchasers paid only 29,773.80 EUR, stating that the included objects were not part of the purchasing price of the property underlying the commission fee invoice. The decision of the AG Charlottenburg:
The AG Charlottenburg (judgement from 02 July 2014 – 231 C 51/14) sentenced the purchasers to paying the still-pending remaining commission fee. The reasons given were that in doubt, the obligation to sell included the accessories as well. This resulted from the legislator's will, according to which the economic unit of the main object and accessories continues at a sale. This is to be assumed as the will of the parties in doubt. Anything deviating from this shall only apply if the parties have expressly excepted this. Since the parties here designated the property with accessories as a whole as the "Purchased object", the separate list and evaluation of the accessories, which is usually made for reasons of tax savings, is not harmful here.
Result:
The property and accessories form a consistent object of the purchase, so that the calculation basis for the broker's commission fee is the agreed (total) purchasing price.