Baulasten: the register buyers forget

A second register, and a different kind of obligation

Two systems record burdens on German land, and they belong to different branches of law. Federal law governs the private easements used for comparison. State law creates the Baulasten register, and a municipal by-law can affect the planning context around the burden. Private rights sit in Abteilung II of the Grundbuch. For the private side, consult the land-register inspection rule and the civil-code easement rule. Public-law obligations sit in the Baulastenverzeichnis, which the responsible building supervision authority keeps at district or independent-city level under § 84 BbgBO.

A buyer who checks only the land register has completed only half of the legal review. A Baulast (public-law building obligation) binds every legal successor, does not appear in any Grundbuch extract, and can be the reason a plot that looks buildable is not. Checking costs a letter and a small fee.

Buyer’s review path

1. What a Baulast is, in plain terms
2. A state-law gap, and why old plots are different
3. Reading what comes back
4. When a neighbour asks you for one
5. Buying a plot that benefits from one

Source: Building codes and Baulasten registers of the 16 states, individually named in the article; checked August 2026

What a Baulast is, in plain terms

An owner declares to the building authority that they will do something, tolerate something or refrain from something on their plot, where the obligation does not already follow from the law. The declaration is made in writing, the signature must be publicly certified or given before the authority itself, and the obligation takes effect on entry in the register. From that moment it also binds successors in title.

The point of the instrument is to let the building authority rely on something that is not otherwise guaranteed. A neighbour agrees to keep a strip free so that your setback can reach across it, and the authority can then grant a permit knowing the strip will stay free whoever owns it in thirty years. A private agreement between neighbours would not do that, because the next owner would not be bound.

Two registers, one parcel. A GrundCheck preflight report resolves the parcel identity and sets out the planning context, which is what turns a Baulasten enquiry into a specific question rather than a general one. Check a parcel.

The four that appear most often

• Abstandsflächenbaulast. A neighbour accepts that part of your required setback falls on their land and that they will not build there. § 6 Abs. 2 BbgBO requires setbacks to lie on your own plot and allows them to reach onto another only if secured under public law, which means exactly this.
• Erschließungsbaulast or Zufahrtsbaulast. Access to a public road across a neighbouring plot, secured so that the authority can treat the parcel as having secured access.
• Vereinigungsbaulast. Two parcels are treated as one for building law purposes, which is what allows a building to sit across the line between them.
• Stellplatzbaulast. Required parking is provided on a different plot, and that plot is bound to keep it available.

Each of these can benefit your parcel or burden it, and the register shows which. A benefiting entry is an asset that has to be verified; a burdening entry is a restriction that came with the land.

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A state-law gap, and why old plots are different

Most German states have had the instrument continuously. one state abolished it in 1998 and brought it back only with the building ordinance that took effect on 1 July 2016. That leaves an eighteen-year hole, and it changes how a parcel from that period has to be checked.

During the gap the same practical needs existed, so the arrangements were made in other ways: as limited personal easements in favour of the authority, entered in Abteilung II of the Grundbuch under § 1090 BGB, or as contractual undertakings that bind nobody after a sale. An empty Baulastenverzeichnis on a plot developed in 2004 therefore proves very little. Both registers get read, and where an old arrangement turns up in Abteilung II, its wording decides whether it still works.

How to get an extract, and from whom

The keeper is the lower building supervision authority, which usually sits at district or independent-city level rather than at the municipality. In the state example, fourteen districts cover the state and four independent cities run their own building supervision.

The Gemeinde is the wrong address for this enquiry, though it is the right one for the Bebauungsplan (binding local development plan) and for the municipal pre-emption right. Buyers lose two or three weeks writing to the village office and waiting for the letter to be passed on. Send the request to the Landkreis, mark it for the Bauaufsichtsbehörde, and put Gemarkung, Flur and Flurstück (cadastral parcel) in the subject line.

Write to the untere Bauaufsichtsbehörde of the Landkreis in which the parcel lies, quoting Gemarkung, Flur and Flurstück, and ask for an extract from the Baulastenverzeichnis or written confirmation that no entry exists. Ask for both directions: entries burdening the parcel and entries in its favour on other plots.

Access is not fully public. The authority will supply an extract to somebody with a legitimate interest, and a buyer with the seller's written consent or a purchase intention documented in writing normally qualifies. The competent authority determines the fee and processing time; confirm both when making the request. Do this in parallel with the Grundbuch extract, not after it.

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Reading what comes back

An entry names the burdened parcel, the content of the obligation, the date of the declaration and usually the parcel or project it was made for. The wording is administrative and terse, and a sketch is often attached, which is the part worth studying. A strip described as three metres along the northern boundary means very little until it is drawn on the cadastral map.

Three questions structure the review of an entry. What exactly may not happen on the burdened area, which is usually building but sometimes also planting or ground changes. How much of the plot is affected, measured. And whether the obligation still serves a purpose, because an entry made for a building that no longer exists may be removable.

What an entry does to your own plans

The effect is geometric and it compounds with everything else. Take an 800 square metre plot 20 metres wide. An Abstandsflächenbaulast in favour of the neighbour takes a three-metre strip along one side. The setbacks under § 6 BbgBO take three metres on each of the other sides for an ordinary house. A utility corridor in Abteilung II takes four metres across the middle. What is left may not hold the house that the GRZ would otherwise permit.

So the exercise is always the same: draw every burden and every setback on the parcel map before making an offer, and see what rectangle survives. The buildability guide covers the planning limits that apply on top, and the easements guide the private-law strips.

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When a neighbour asks you for one

Sooner or later the plot next door needs something from yours: a setback that reaches across, an access, a parking space. The request will be presented as a formality. It is not. A Baulast you grant reduces what your own plot can carry, permanently, and it binds whoever you sell to.

Three rules before signing anything. Establish exactly what area is affected and what it costs you in buildable ground, measured rather than described. Ask for payment, because the benefit to the neighbour is often the difference between a permit and no permit, and there is nothing improper in pricing it. And have the declaration drafted narrowly, limited to the specific purpose, because a broadly worded obligation is harder to get released later.

Getting one removed

A Baulast ends when the building authority waives it, and § 84 Abs. 3 BbgBO obliges the authority to declare a waiver once there is no longer a public interest in the obligation. Before waiving, it should hear both the burdened owner and those who benefit.

In practice that means an entry made for a building that has been demolished, or for a permit that was never used, can often be cleared, while one that still supports a neighbour's existing permit cannot. The application is free to make and worth making early, because the answer takes weeks and a pending application is not a removed burden. Never buy on the basis that a Baulast will probably be lifted.

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Buying a plot that benefits from one

The register works in both directions, and a Baulast in your favour on the neighbour's plot can be the reason your parcel is buildable at all. Where the seller or the agent says the access, the setback or the parking is secured, that statement has to be verified on the burdened plot, not accepted about yours.

Ask three questions of a benefiting entry. Does it name your parcel specifically, because an obligation made in favour of a different plot or a specific old project may not help you. Does its content actually cover what you intend, since an access secured for agricultural use is not automatically an access for a house. And is the burdened area still physically usable for the purpose, because an entry saying a strip is kept free does not remove a mature oak standing on it.

What happens if the obligation is ignored

A Baulast is enforced by the building authority, not by the neighbour. If the burdened owner builds on a strip that was to stay free, the authority can require the situation to be restored, and its orders run against whoever owns the plot at the time, not against whoever made the declaration.

That is the point of the instrument, and it is also the risk a buyer inherits. Buying a plot where the previous owner quietly built a carport across a secured access means buying the order that follows. The check asks two questions: does an entry exist, and does the ground match it? Take the sketch out to the plot and look. Where the two disagree, the price conversation happens before completion, because afterwards the enforcement letter arrives addressed to you.

The classification that decides the next step

Which finding applies?

1. Access BaulastSecures access under public law
2. Setback BaulastMoves a required setback area
3. Parking or unification BaulastBinds a use or several parcels

Source: Building codes and Baulasten registers of the 16 states, individually named in the article; checked August 2026

Three mistakes that cost real money

Assuming a clean Grundbuch means a clean plot. The two registers are unconnected. A notary reviews the land register as a matter of course; the Baulastenverzeichnis is the buyer's job to request, and nobody in the transaction will do it unprompted.

Signing a neighbour's declaration as a favour. The request always arrives framed as a formality between good neighbours. The obligation is permanent, it binds the person you eventually sell to, and it can take the buildable rectangle off your own plot. Measure the cost, then decide.

Buying on a promised waiver. An application for release is not a release. The authority takes weeks, has to hear the beneficiaries, and will refuse where a public interest in the obligation remains. Either the waiver is in hand before completion or the plot is bought with the burden.

Baulast against Grunddienstbarkeit

	Baulast	Grunddienstbarkeit
Legal basis	§ 84 BbgBO, public law	§ 1018 BGB, private law
Register	Baulastenverzeichnis, Landkreis	Grundbuch, Abteilung II
Created by	declaration to the authority, certified signature	agreement plus registration
Enforced by	the building authority	the holder, through the civil courts
Removed by	waiver by the authority	consent of the holder
Visible in a Grundbuch extract	no	yes
Hesse	Additional state checkpoint: consult the current state guide and obtain the plot-specific written answer from the competent authority.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania	Additional state checkpoint: consult the current state guide and obtain the plot-specific written answer from the competent authority.
Lower Saxony	Additional state checkpoint: consult the current state guide and obtain the plot-specific written answer from the competent authority.
North Rhine-Westphalia	Additional state checkpoint: consult the current state guide and obtain the plot-specific written answer from the competent authority.
Rhineland-Palatinate	Additional state checkpoint: consult the current state guide and obtain the plot-specific written answer from the competent authority.
Saarland	Additional state checkpoint: consult the current state guide and obtain the plot-specific written answer from the competent authority.
Saxony	Additional state checkpoint: consult the current state guide and obtain the plot-specific written answer from the competent authority.
Saxony-Anhalt	Additional state checkpoint: consult the current state guide and obtain the plot-specific written answer from the competent authority.
Schleswig-Holstein	Additional state checkpoint: consult the current state guide and obtain the plot-specific written answer from the competent authority.
Thuringia	Additional state checkpoint: consult the current state guide and obtain the plot-specific written answer from the competent authority.

The two often exist side by side for the same arrangement, and for good reason. A right of way registered in the Grundbuch gives the neighbour a private claim; the matching Baulast gives the building authority its guarantee. The private-side check also includes good-faith acquisition under § 892 BGB, and where access is missing, the possible emergency-way claim under § 917 BGB. Where only one of the pair exists, ask why.

What it costs, and what it saves

An extract costs a small administrative fee and one to three weeks. Set against that, an Abstandsflächenbaulast discovered after purchase can remove the only compliant building position on a plot, and the market value of a plot that cannot be built on is farmland value: in 2025 that meant 1.17 € per square metre for cropland against 219 € for a building plot in Brandenburg (market report 2025). Few checks in a land purchase have that ratio between cost and consequence.

Put numbers on an 800 square metre plot and the point makes itself. At Brandenburg's state average, the building land is worth around 175 000 €, and near a metropolitan ring at 318 € per square metre closer to 254 000 €. Reduced to agricultural value it is worth under 1 000 €. Even a burden that only shifts the building position rather than removing it tends to cost a five-figure sum in redesign, a smaller house or a lower price, all of which are visible before the deed and invisible after it.

Before the notary appointment

• An extract from the Baulastenverzeichnis at the Landkreis, or written confirmation that no entry exists.
• The same enquiry in the other direction: entries on other plots that benefit yours.
• Any attached sketch, drawn onto the cadastral map together with the setbacks.
• For a plot developed between 1998 and 2016, a careful reading of Abteilung II for authority easements.
• Written confirmation of any waiver the seller says is coming, before completion rather than after.
• Where a neighbour is asking for a new Baulast, a measured assessment of the cost and a price for it.

Check the register that does not show up in the extract. Order a GrundCheck preflight report and start the Baulasten enquiry with the correct parcel identity and the planning picture already in hand. Check a parcel.

Where these rules are written

• Baulasten and the register: § 84 BbgBO; setbacks and the public-law securing of them, § 6 of the same ordinance.

The state comparison cites § 72 LBO; Art. 6 Abs. 2 BayBO; § 82 Abs. 1 and § 82 Abs. 2 BremLBO; § 82 BremLBO; § 83 HBauO, § 83 Abs. 1 HBauO and § 83 Abs. 5 HBauO; § 85 HBO; § 83 LBauO M-V; § 81 NBauO; § 85 BauO NRW 2018; § 86 LBauO Rheinland-Pfalz; § 83 LBO; § 83 SächsBO; § 82 BauO LSA; and § 82 ThürBO.

• Private easements for comparison: § 1018 and § 1090 BGB.
• Planning permissibility that applies on top: § 30, § 34 and § 35 BauGB.
• Land register access and extract fees: § 12 GBO and the GNotKG schedule of charges.
• Land values for the price comparison: BORIS land-value portal and the market report 2025.

Rules and figures were checked in August 2026. This is general information for buyers, not legal advice on your parcel. Read next: private easements, register and cadastre and buildability.

Two further topics decide what the plot can carry: boundary planting and fences, the hereditary building right.

What differs between states

Baulasten are governed by state building law. Register names, access rules and procedures differ, and Bavaria uses a different legal structure without a conventional Baulasten register.