charge
noun · Belastung
Belastung for the encumbrance, Anklage for the criminal charge, Gebühr or Entgelt for the price, and the floating charge for none of them, it has no German twin. Outside the ship and aircraft registers German law grants no non-possessory register charge over movables, § 1205 BGB wants the pledge handed over, so practice answers with Sicherungsübereignung and global assignment.
Which translation, when
Why
Charge routes three civil ways and hides one system gap. The encumbrance sense is die Belastung, land is belastet and its registered charges sit in Abteilungen II und III of the Grundbuch. The criminal sense runs on the Offizialprinzip, the citizen reports, Strafanzeige, § 158 StPO, and the public charge is the prosecutor’s alone, § 152 StPO, the private-prosecution niche of § 374 StPO aside, die Anklage raised under § 170 StPO. The price sense splits into Gebühren for officialdom and Entgelte for banks and businesses. The gap is the floating charge, and it is structural, German property law runs a numerus clausus, the classic pledge of movables is possessory, § 1205 Abs. 1 BGB wants the thing handed over, and outside the special registers for ships and aircraft there is no non-possessory register charge over movables. Practice rebuilt the function instead, die Sicherungsübereignung moves ownership while the debtor keeps possession, §§ 929, 930 BGB, and die Globalzession sweeps the receivables, which together do the floating charge’s work without ever bearing its name. A translation therefore reconstructs English security, it cannot render it, and eine schwebende Belastung names a creature the numerus clausus refuses to recognise.
Typical mistakes
- Floating charge does not translate, it functions, the German answer is Sicherungsübereignung plus Globalzession, and a clause granting eine schwebende Belastung grants nothing the numerus clausus recognises.
- Charge over movables meets § 1205 BGB, the pledge wants possession handed over, ship and aircraft registers aside, so English security language must be rebuilt, not rendered.
- To press charges is Strafanzeige erstatten, § 158 StPO, and the public charge belongs to the prosecutor, § 152 StPO, the private-prosecution niche of § 374 StPO aside, so the citizen reports and, as a rule, the state accuses.
What matters
Security packages translate by reconstruction: the fixed and floating charges of the English debenture become Sicherungsübereignung of the movables, §§ 929, 930 BGB, and Globalzession of the receivables, because § 1205 BGB keeps the classic pledge possessory and the numerus clausus admits no floating anything. The document that promises eine schwebende Belastung has encumbered nothing but the translation.
What the machine misses
Charge scatters by scene in machine output, Anklage, Gebühr, Ladung, and the security sense lands hardest, the floating charge arriving as schwebende Belastung, a phrase German property law cannot parse. The numerus clausus does not float, movable security is rebuilt here from transferred ownership and assigned receivables, and the translated debenture secures nothing until someone redrafts it as German law.
Examples
| charge over the assets | die Belastung der Vermögenswerte |
| free of charge | unentgeltlich |
| the charges were dropped | das Verfahren wurde eingestellt |
| bank charges | die Bankentgelte |