fixture
noun · wesentlicher Bestandteil
Wesentlicher Bestandteil for a fixture that becomes part of the land, § 94 BGB, and being an essential part it cannot be separately owned, § 93 BGB, so title follows the land. But a thing attached only temporarily stays movable as a Scheinbestandteil, § 95 BGB, the tenant’s fixture that does not pass. Vorrichtung, a device, is the machine’s miss.
Which translation, when
Why
A fixture is a chattel so attached to land that it becomes part of it and passes with it, and German draws the same line but with sharper consequences through its Bestandteil rules. A thing firmly connected to the land or a building is a wesentlicher Bestandteil, § 94 BGB, and the sting is § 93 BGB, an essential part cannot be the subject of separate rights, so once a chattel becomes a wesentlicher Bestandteil it stops being separately owned, retention of title in an installed thing simply ends. The counter-rule matters as much, a thing joined to the land only for a temporary purpose is a Scheinbestandteil, § 95 BGB, and stays movable and separately owned, which is how a tenant’s installations remain the tenant’s despite being bolted in. Alongside sits das Zubehör, § 97 BGB, accessories that serve the main thing without being parts of it, a different category again. So fixture is reconstructed by asking whether the attachment is permanent, a wesentlicher Bestandteil, or temporary, a Scheinbestandteil, and the reflex Vorrichtung or Befestigung, a device or a fastening, misses the ownership consequence entirely, that the thing has merged into the land and lost its separate title.
Typical mistakes
- A wesentlicher Bestandteil cannot be separately owned, § 93 BGB, so a fixture that has become part of the land, § 94 BGB, ends any retention of title in it, a consequence the English word does not announce.
- A tenant’s fixture is usually a Scheinbestandteil, § 95 BGB, attached for a temporary purpose and staying movable, so treating every fixture as a permanent wesentlicher Bestandteil wrongly strips the tenant’s ownership.
- Vorrichtung or Befestigung is a device or a fastening, not the legal category, so the reflex rendering of fixture loses that the thing has merged into the land.
What matters
Plant and installation clauses turn on permanence: a machine bolted in for good is a wesentlicher Bestandteil that cannot be separately owned, § 93, § 94 BGB, while a tenant’s temporary installation stays movable as a Scheinbestandteil, § 95 BGB. The retention-of-title clause over a fixture that has become a wesentlicher Bestandteil has tried to reserve ownership the BGB has already extinguished.
What the machine misses
Fixture arrives as Vorrichtung or Befestigung in machine output, a device or a fastening, and the legal category is lost, a fixture is a wesentlicher Bestandteil of the land, § 94 BGB, which under § 93 BGB can no longer be separately owned. So a translated fixture reads as a mere fitting when the German consequence is ownership, the thing has merged into the land and any reserved title in it is gone, and the temporary-attachment exception, the Scheinbestandteil that stays movable, disappears with it.
Examples
| fixtures and fittings | wesentliche Bestandteile und Zubehör |
| a tenant’s fixture | der Scheinbestandteil |
| to become a fixture | wesentlicher Bestandteil werden |
| fixtures pass with the land | die Bestandteile gehen mit dem Grundstück über |