Case law

  • Case Details
    • National ID: XI ZR 204/04
    • Member State: Germany
    • Common Name:link
    • Decision type: Other
    • Decision date: 19/09/2006
    • Court: BGH (Supreme court)
    • Subject:
    • Plaintiff:
    • Defendant:
    • Keywords:
  • Directive Articles
    Doorstep Selling Directive, Article 1, 1. Doorstep Selling Directive, Article 4
  • Headnote
    1. A duty of information of the financing bank in case of an institutionalised cooperation with the seller or distributor of the financed object due to superior knowledge of a fraudulent misrepresentation requires factual and provably false statements of the broker or seller with respect to investment object (Amendment of Federal Court of Justice, judgment of 16 May 2006 – XI ZR 6/04).
    2. § 2 HWiG (Haustürwiderrufsgesetz – Doorstep Withdrawal Act) is to be interpreted in a directive-conform manner to the effect that it imposes a legal duty on the entrepreneur which can lead to a claim for damages due to the breach of this precontractual duty.
    3. A claim for damages on the grounds of an omitted instruction on the right of withdrawal as per § 2 HWiG requires the entrepreneur to have acted in fault.
    4. To successfully claim damages on the grounds of an omitted instruction on the right of withdrawal as per § 2 HWiG the lender has to prove that the omitted instruction has been causative to the suffered damage, i. e. that he would have actually revoked the loan agreement if he had been provided with a proper instruction.
  • Facts
    The plaintiff instituted civil proceedings to prevent the forced execution initiated by the defendant bank on the basis of an executable notarised document. He asserts his own claims as well as those ceded to him by his wife. The case is based on the following facts:

    In 1993 the plaintiff’s son, who worked part-time for a real estate agent, had acquired the plaintiff and his wife (his mother) as customers of a tax saving scheme. They were induced to purchase an apartment in an apartment complex for reasons of tax saving without having to invest any existing own capital. To effectuate the purchase of the apartment they conferred comprehensive legal authority to the “G. Treuhandgesellschaft mbH” [transl.: G. Trust Company Ltd.] by notarised document dating from 18 May 1993 which was incorporated in a contract for the management of their affairs in that matter. Inter alia, the fiduciary was mandated to conclude the contract of sale and was authorised to grant loan securities in rem and in personam.

    On 15 / 18 May 1993 they personally concluded a loan agreement for DM 193.200 with the defendant’s legal predecessor (in the following: defendant) to finance the purchase price and the auxiliary costs of the purchase. The agreement had a duration until 30 May 2023 and a fixed-interest-period until 30 May 1998. The pre-formulated agreement under no. 8.1 contained the obligation to register a land charge to the amount of loan including a submission to forced execution in rem to the benefit of the defendant combined with the obligation to submit to forced execution into their entire private property. An instruction on the right of withdrawal under the HWiG was not provided. On 15 May 1993 the plaintiff and his wife additionally signed a “purpose declaration” directed at the defendant, which inter alia stated that the land charge and the defendant’s rights from their accepted liability were meant to secure all the defendant’s claims against them.

    On 2 June 1993 the fiduciary purchased an apartment together with a double parking space for DM 110.580 for the plaintiff and his wife by notarised contract of sale and contract for work and materials. By notarised document of the same day the seller of the apartment registered a land charge amounting to DM 194.000 to the benefit of the defendant. It was enforceable under § 800 ZPO (Code of Civil Procedure). At the same time, the fiduciary in his capacity as the agent of the plaintiff and his wife accepted their personal liability for the amount of the land charge and submitted them to forced execution into their entire personal property.

    On 16 June 1993 the defendant transferred the value of the loan minus a discount and the interest accrued in the meantime (DM 173.481,52) to a shared account of the plaintiff and his wife kept with the defendant.

    By letter dating from 14 January 2002 the plaintiff and his wife revoked their declarations of intent leading to the conclusion of the loan agreement under reference to § 1 HWiG, claiming that they had been induced to make them in a doorstep situation. Since they had only fulfilled their obligations to pay under the agreement until January 2002, the defendant by letter of 19 April 2002 under pain of forced execution requested them to pay the amount they had fallen into arrears with.

    The plaintiff contests the forced execution based on the notarised document of 2 June 1993. He claims that the defendant was not entitled to a claim for repayment of the loan, since the loan agreement had been validly revoked. In addition, the defendant, which had closely and on a sustained basis cooperated with the developer, the broker and the fiduciary, had not properly informed him about the financial risks of the investment. In particular it had known that the market value of the apartment had only been 41% of the purchase price. By way of counterclaim on the condition that the plaintiff’s claim should be upheld, the defendant claims the repayment of the disbursed loan value together with interest. The plaintiff’s claim was dismissed in the lower instances.
  • Legal issue
    At the plaintiff’s appeal on a point of law, the Federal Court of justice has overruled the appellate court’s judgment and referred the case back for a new decision.

    The appellate court’s opinion, however, that the plaintiff could not raise objections arising from the financed purchase of the property under § 9(3)(1) VerbrKrG (Verbraucherkreditgesetz – Consumer Credit Act) because under § 3(2) no. 2 VerbrKrG this provision did not apply to real estate loan contracts which had been concluded under the conditions customary for loans secured by land charges is not affected by any legal mistake. This even applies, as the senate has extensively pointed out in his judgment of 25 April 2006 (XI ZR 219/04), if the purchaser of the investment object has not granted the land charge himself. As the senate has pointed out in detail in his judgement of 16 May 2006 (XI ZR 6/04), this legal assessment is neither changed by the decisions of the ECJ of 25 October 2005 (C-350/03 – Schulte and Crailsheimer Volksbank).
    The appellate court has also correctly denied a plaintiff’s claim for damages based on the breach of a precontractual information duty which could be raised as an objection against the defendant’s claim. A duty of the bank to inform the customers about the purchase price being unreasonably high (a duty which usually would not even be imposed on the seller) can only be considered as an exception if the discrepancy between the market value and the purchase price – be it due to a hidden marketing fees, be it due to other reasons – is so extreme that the bank must assume that the buyer had been damnified in a manner contrary to public policy. According to established case law, this is the case if the value of performance is nearly twice as high as the value of the consideration. The mere allegation of the plaintiff that the actual market value of the apartment had been DM 38.000 and thus only 41% of the demanded purchase price and his allegation that the defendant had had knowledge of this fact since it had carried out an assessment of its value do not meet the requirements for a substantiated statement of case with respect to the alleged reduced market value of the apartment.

    As far as the finding senate by judgement of 16 May 2006 (XI ZR 6/04) has amended his judicature on the existence of information duties in order to intensify consumer protection in connection with apartment sales and the acquisition of shares in real estate funds which are financed by real estate loan contracts and which cannot be qualified as connected contracts and to transpose the principles of consumer protection from the risks of capital investment schemes laid down in the ECJ judgements of 25 October 2005 (C-350/03 – Schulte and Crailsheimer Volksbank) into national law, this does not justify any other assessment of the case at hand.

    According to this judicature, in case of an institutionalised cooperation between the lending bank and the seller or distributor of the financed object, the investors can under alleviated conditions invoke a duty of information arising from superior knowledge of the bank of a fraudulent misrepresentation to their detriment by way of false statements of the investment broker, seller or fund initiator or in the fund prospect with respect to the investment object.

    The existence of the bank’s superior knowledge of a fraudulent misrepresentation causing a duty of information is rebuttably presumed, if the sellers or fund initiators, the investment brokers and the financing bank cooperate in an institutionalised manner, the financing of the investment has been advertised by the seller or broker and the falseness of the statements of the seller, fund initiator or their broker or the statements in the sale or fund prospect was so evident that it creates the impression that the bank had intentionally ignored the fraudulent misrepresentation.

    These requirements are not met here, since the plaintiff has not made any substantiated statement with respect to a fraudulent misrepresentation by evidently false statements committed by the broker. It is necessary that the alleged deceit has been committed by pretending or distorting facts relates to objective facts which can be proven and not only to subjective value judgements or noisy advertising. Actual superior knowledge of the bank about the investor having been deceived giving rise to an information duty accordingly requires actual and provably false statements of the broker or seller about the investment object. However, these do not exist according to the plaintiff’s statement of case.

    The judgement of the appellate court, however, does not pass the review as far as it has denied a plaintiff’s right of withdrawal under § 1(1) HWiG on the grounds that the doorstep situation, which had been alleged by the plaintiff and thus is to be considered proven in this instance of appeal, could not be attributed to the defendant. The appellate court’s decision insofar complies with the previous judicature of the Federal Court of Justice (cf. FCJ, judgment of 8 June 2004 – XI ZR 150/03; FCJ, judgement of 12 November 2002 – XI ZR 3/01; judgment of 15 July 2003 – XI 162/00 and of 20 January 2004 – XI ZR 460/02). However – as has already been pointed out in the judgments of 14. February 2006 (XI ZR 255/04) and of 20 June 2006 (XI ZR 224/05), to which reference is made here – the senate does not abide by this judicature any longer due to the decision of the ECJ of 25 October 2005 (Crailsheimer Volksbank). Accordingly, a separate attribution of the doorstep situation in analogy to § 123 BGB, which the appellate court found necessary, is no longer required.

    Thus, the appellate court has not yet established whether the loan contract in dispute is a doorstep transaction in the terms of § 1(1) HWiG. This will have to be made up for.
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