Access and Erschließung: what a plot needs

The condition every route has in common

Whatever the planning basis, buildability depends on the Erschließung (legal access and servicing) being secured. Federal law sets the common buildability condition through the BauGB. State law supplies the building-code details, while a municipal by-law can govern local roads and charges. § 30, § 34 and § 35 BauGB each impose that condition. A plot without it is not a building plot, whatever the development plan allows.

The word covers two things that buyers tend to merge: access to a public road, and connection to the technical networks. This guide deals with the first, which is the one that is settled in law rather than by a quotation. Water, power, sewerage and the rest are covered in the utilities guide.

A Baulast (public-law building obligation) may also be needed where access crosses neighbouring land.

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What secured access actually means

The building authority is asking whether the plot can be reached from a public road on a permanent, legally reliable basis. Three answers satisfy it. The plot borders a public road directly. It reaches one over another plot by way of a registered easement, and in practice also a Baulast. Or a public road is being built and its completion is secured.

What does not satisfy it: a track that has always been used, a friendly arrangement with a neighbour, a lease, or a possible claim to an emergency way under § 917 BGB. Long use creates no right of way in German law. The question at the counter is which document secures the access, and the answer has to be a document.

Check the road before the house. A GrundCheck preflight report shows the parcel in its surroundings, including how it sits in relation to the road network, which is where the access question starts. Check a parcel.

Public road or private track

Whether a road is public is a legal status, not a description of the surface. Under the applicable state road act a road becomes public by dedication, and until that has happened even a well-built asphalt street belongs to somebody and is used at their sufferance.

Village roads in rural areas are frequently not what they look like. A sand track can be a dedicated municipal road, and a paved lane serving four houses can be a private strip in shared ownership with no maintenance arrangement. The municipality can say which, and the answer decides who clears the snow, who repairs the surface and whether the building authority will treat the plot as accessible.

Securing access over somebody else's land

Where the road is reached over a neighbouring parcel, a buyer needs both halves of the belt-and-braces arrangement. A Grunddienstbarkeit under § 1018 BGB in Abteilung II of the land register gives a private right against the owner of the burdened plot. A Baulast under § 84 BbgBO in the district register gives the building authority the guarantee it needs for the permit.

Either without the other leaves a gap. A registered easement alone may not persuade the authority; a Baulast alone gives you nothing to enforce against the neighbour privately. Check the rank of the easement too, because a right of way behind three mortgages can be swept away in a forced sale. Both instruments are covered in the easements guide.

Access: public, private and secured

Public road

Building plot
setback

Access: easement + Baulast

Source: Editorial schematic based on BauGB §§ 30, 34 and 35, BGB § 1018 and the relevant state building code; checked August 2026

The width the fire brigade needs

Access has a physical dimension as well as a legal one. The building ordinance requires routes on the plot that the fire service can use, and for houses under the applicable state building code that generally means an access at least three metres wide, kept clear, with a surface that carries a fire appliance and enough space to manoeuvre where the building sits well back from the road.

A long, narrow flag-lot access is where this bites. A four-metre strip looks generous on the cadastral map and becomes tight once a fence, a hedge and a parked car are on it. Where the design depends on a rear position, put the question to the designer early, because the fire service requirement can decide where the house stands as firmly as any setback.

Who has to build the road

The municipality. § 123 BauGB makes Erschließung a municipal duty, and then removes the sting: there is no legal claim to have it carried out. The municipality builds when it has planned and budgeted for it, and a plot in a development plan area whose road has not been built can wait years.

The reason is money. A road, its drainage and its lighting cost the municipality the whole sum up front and it recovers the contributions afterwards, so a small community with a thin budget builds when it can and not when a landowner asks. Plots sold in the 1990s in speculative layouts around rural villages are still waiting.

Two practical consequences. A seller saying the road is coming should be asked for the municipal resolution and the budget line, not for a reassurance. And where a development plan exists but the road does not, the plot is worth less than a serviced one, because the buyer is carrying both the delay and the later contribution.

Erschließungsbeitrag: the bill for the first road

When the municipality builds the road for the first time, the owners along it pay for most of it. § 127 BauGB sets out which facilities are chargeable, § 131 and § 129 BauGB govern the apportionment.

The amounts are serious. A first-time road, footway, lighting and drainage in a village street produces charges that reach well into five figures for a single plot. There is no cap in the buyer's favour, and the burden attaches to the plot rather than to the person who owned it while the diggers were there.

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When the charge falls due, and on whom

§ 133 BauGB is the section that catches buyers. The contribution arises when the facility is finally completed and can be charged from then on, and the notice goes to whoever owns the plot when it is issued. A road finished in 2019 and invoiced in 2026 is invoiced to the 2026 owner.

So the question for the seller is not whether they have received a bill. It is whether the road, the footway, the lighting and the drainage are finally complete in the legal sense and whether the municipality has issued its final assessment. Ask the municipality directly for written confirmation of the status, and where anything is open, either hold back part of the price or have the seller assume the charge in the deed. § 135 BauGB governs payment and the instalments that can be granted.

State road contributions: what differs by state

Two different charges are constantly confused. Straßenausbaubeiträge covered the later renewal and improvement of an existing road. Brandenburg abolished them, and Berlin has also abolished them: municipalities may no longer levy them for measures completed after 1 January 2019, and the state pays the municipalities a lump sum instead (infrastructure ministry). Charges for measures finished up to 31 December 2018 were unaffected.

The Erschließungsbeitrag for the first-time construction of a road under the Baugesetzbuch was untouched and continues to be levied. So a buyer in a state with that reform no longer faces a bill because the street is being resurfaced, but very much still faces one where the street was never properly built in the first place. Other municipal charges, for example for water and sewerage connection, run under the Kommunalabgabengesetz. The state-law rules shown in the German comparison cite § 20 KAG BW; Art. 5, Art. 5 Abs. 1 Satz 3, Art. 5a and Art. 19 Abs. 7 BayKAG; § 20 Abs. 3–4 KAG Brandenburg; § 17 BremGebBeitrG; § 11 KAG Hessen; § 8a KAG M-V; § 6 NKAG; § 8 Abs. 1 Satz 3 KAG NRW; § 10a KAG Rheinland-Pfalz; § 8 and § 8a KAG Saarland; § 83 KSVG; § 26 ff. SächsKAG; § 18a KAG-LSA; Art. 2 of the Schleswig-Holstein repeal act; and § 7 Abs. 2 ThürKAG.

Questions for the municipality, in one letter

• Is the road bordering the parcel dedicated as a public road under the applicable state road act?
• Is the Erschließung of this parcel complete in the sense of the Baugesetzbuch?
• Has a final Erschließungsbeitrag assessment been issued for it, and is anything outstanding?
• Are further facilities planned that would be chargeable?
• Does the parcel need a separate approval for a vehicle crossing onto the road, and from whom?

Put all five in one letter with Gemarkung, Flur and Flurstück (cadastral parcel), and ask for a written answer. The reply is the document that goes to the notary and to the bank.

Send it early. Municipal offices in the smaller communities are staffed thinly, often part time, and three to six weeks for a written answer is normal rather than slow. A buyer who writes on the day the plot is found has the answer before the notary appointment; one who writes after signing has it in time for the invoice.

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The crossing onto the road

Getting from the plot onto the carriageway is its own permission. For a municipal road the municipality decides, for a Kreisstraße the district, and for a Landesstraße or Bundesstraße the state road authority. On classified roads outside built-up areas a new access is often refused outright or allowed only at a specific point.

The rule behind the refusals is about traffic safety rather than about the plot. Sight lines, the distance to a junction or a bend, and the speed limit on the stretch all feed into the answer, and none of them is negotiable from the buyer's side. Where an existing access already serves the parcel, ask whether it is approved, since a crossing built without permission does not become lawful through age.

The construction of the dropped kerb and the crossing is at the owner's cost, typically a four-figure sum, and it has to match what the road authority specifies. On a plot fronting a busy classified road, ask about the crossing before assuming a driveway is possible at all, because the position of the entrance can determine the position of the house.

Access in the open countryside

In the Außenbereich the requirement is worded differently. § 35 BauGB asks whether the Erschließung is sufficient rather than fully developed, and for a farm building a firm track can be enough where a house would need more. Sufficient is judged against the project, so the standard rises with what is being built.

Two things catch buyers of rural plots. Winter and mud: an unpaved track that carries a tractor may not carry a concrete lorry or a fire appliance in February, and the authority thinks about the worst case. And ownership: field tracks in rural areas are frequently owned by the municipality, by a Flurneuordnung body or by several neighbours jointly, so the right to use one for construction traffic and then permanently has to be established rather than assumed. The outer area guide covers what may be built there at all.

Three mistakes that cost real money

Believing the asphalt. A surfaced lane can be a private strip and a sand track can be a dedicated public road. Status comes from dedication under the road act, not from the surface, and only the municipality can confirm it.

Buying before the assessment is closed. The Erschließungsbeitrag lands on whoever owns the plot when the notice is issued, years after the diggers left. A written confirmation from the municipality that the assessment is final costs a stamp and settles a five-figure question.

Relying on one instrument. An easement without a Baulast may not satisfy the building authority; a Baulast without an easement gives you nothing to enforce privately. Where access runs over somebody else's land, both belong in the file.

Evidence of secured access

How does the parcel reach the road?

1. Direct frontageCheck dedication and crossing
2. Neighbouring parcelCheck easement + Baulast
3. Long use onlyNot legally secured

Source: BGB §§ 917 and 1018; BauGB §§ 30, 34 and 35; building code of the relevant state; checked August 2026

Private roads and shared strips

Where the access is a private strip, three things need checking. Ownership, because a strip in fractional co-ownership means every decision needs the co-owners. Maintenance, because private roads are repaired by their owners and a written arrangement is rare. And the extent of the right, since an easement for agricultural access does not necessarily cover construction traffic or a second house.

The costs are real: resurfacing a shared 200-metre sand track runs into tens of thousands of euros, split among whoever the arrangement says. Where no arrangement exists, the split is argued out later, usually badly. Ask for the current one in writing before buying.

Co-ownership of the strip is the arrangement that causes the least trouble in the long run, because every owner then has a share and a vote, and the maintenance is shared by law rather than by goodwill. An easement over a strip that belongs to one neighbour is workable but leaves you dependent on that owner staying reasonable, and on the wording of the deed covering what you actually need. Ask specifically whether the right covers construction traffic, because a right of way granted for a garden plot in 1994 was not written with a concrete lorry in mind.

What the difference is worth

The gap between the first and the last row is close to the gap between building land at Brandenburg's 2025 state average of 219 € per square metre and land that cannot be built on (state market report).

One parcel, one clear picture. Order a GrundCheck preflight report before writing to the municipality, so every question you ask names the right Flurstück and gets an answer you can use. Check a parcel.

Where these rules are written

• Erschließung as a condition: § 30, § 34, § 35 BauGB; the duty and the absence of a claim, § 123 BauGB.
• Contributions: § 127, § 129, § 131, § 133 and § 135 BauGB; municipal charges under the state municipal charges act.
• Roads and dedication: state road act; abolition of the Straßenausbaubeitrag, MIL.
• Securing access: § 1018 BGB, § 84 BbgBO, and the limits of § 917 BGB.
• Parcel data and land values: GEOBROKER, state cadastral viewer, BORIS.

Rules and figures were checked in August 2026. This is general information for buyers, not legal advice on your parcel. Read next: utilities, costs and fees and the permit procedures.

What differs between states

State building and municipal-charges law determines the competent register, procedure and any later road-improvement charge. Confirm the current state rule and local by-law for the parcel.