conveyance
noun · Auflassung
Auflassung for the conveyance of land, the dingliche Einigung § 925 BGB, but it is only half the transfer, land moves by Auflassung plus Eintragung in the Grundbuch, § 873 BGB, and the Trennungsprinzip keeps this dingliche step apart from the Kaufvertrag, § 311b BGB. So a conveyance is not one act but two. Beförderung is the machine’s howler, that is transport.
Which translation, when
Why
A conveyance transfers legal title to land, and German turns that single English idea into a two-step dingliche process kept strictly apart from the sale. The transfer proper is die Auflassung, the dingliche Einigung on the change of ownership, and § 925 BGB gives it a hard form, both parties must declare it simultaneously before a notary, no conditions allowed. But the Auflassung alone moves nothing, ownership passes only with die Eintragung in the Grundbuch, § 873 BGB, so the conveyance is complete at registration, not at signing. Behind this sits the Trennungsprinzip, the obligatory Kaufvertrag that binds the parties to convey, itself needing notarisation, § 311b BGB, is a separate legal act from the Auflassung that performs the transfer, and the Abstraktionsprinzip pushes further, a defect in the Kaufvertrag does not by itself undo a completed Auflassung, the property has passed and must be reclaimed by a separate restitutionary route. So conveyance translated as one act loses the split that governs German land law, and the reflex Übertragung is too generic while Beförderung, transport, is simply wrong. Conveyancing as the practice is die Immobilienabwicklung, again reconstructed, since there is no single German word for the English conveyancer’s job.
Typical mistakes
- A conveyance is two steps in German law, the Auflassung, § 925 BGB, and the Eintragung, § 873 BGB, so translating it as a single transfer act misses that ownership passes only on registration.
- The Auflassung is separate from the Kaufvertrag, § 311b BGB, under the Trennungsprinzip, so the contract that binds the parties and the dingliche act that transfers must not be merged into one conveyance.
- Beförderung is transport, not a land transfer, so the reflex rendering of conveyance can turn a property transfer into a haulage clause.
What matters
Property-sale documentation splits the act: the parties are bound by a notarised Kaufvertrag, § 311b BGB, but title moves only by Auflassung and Eintragung, § 925, § 873 BGB, so a conveyance done on signing has not yet passed ownership. The clause treating a conveyance as complete at contract has confused the binding promise with the registered transfer.
What the machine misses
Conveyance comes back as Übertragung or, at its worst, Beförderung in machine output, and neither carries the German structure, land moves only by Auflassung, the notarised dingliche Einigung, § 925 BGB, together with Eintragung in the Grundbuch, § 873 BGB. The two-step transfer and its separation from the Kaufvertrag vanish into one generic word, so a translated conveyance can read as complete on signing when German ownership passes only on registration, and at worst turns a land transfer into transport.
Examples
| the conveyance of the land | die Auflassung des Grundstücks |
| to convey title | das Eigentum auflassen |
| completion on registration | der Eigentumsübergang mit Eintragung |
| conveyancing | die Immobilienabwicklung |
More notes on these sections
deed Deed
notarisation notarielle Beurkundung
mortgage Grundschuld