nuisance
noun · Immission
Immission for a private nuisance in German neighbour law, § 906 BGB, but the concept is a threshold, an owner must tolerate an interference that is immaterial, or is ortsüblich and cannot reasonably be prevented, § 906 BGB, and only beyond it does a claim arise, removed or restrained by the Abwehranspruch, § 1004 BGB. Belästigung, an annoyance, is the machine’s miss, too weak for the property standard.
Which translation, when
Why
A private nuisance is an unlawful interference with the use of land, and German handles it as neighbour law built around a threshold rather than a single tort word. The interferences, die Immissionen, gases, vapours, smells, noise, vibration, are governed by § 906 BGB, and the section is really a tolerance rule, the owner must put up with an interference that does not or only insubstantially affects the use of the land, and even a substantial one where it is ortsüblich and cannot be prevented by economically reasonable measures, with a compensation claim in that last case. Only where the interference crosses the threshold does the neighbour have a claim to have it removed or stopped, der nachbarrechtliche Abwehranspruch, resting on § 1004 BGB, the negatorischer Anspruch to Beseitigung and Unterlassung. Public nuisance is a different matter, reached through public law or through § 823 Abs. 2 BGB with a protective statute, not the neighbour rule. So nuisance is reconstructed as an Immission tested against § 906 and, once actionable, an Abwehranspruch under § 1004, and the reflex Belästigung or Ärgernis, an annoyance in the everyday sense, misses that German nuisance is a property standard with a measured threshold, not a general grievance.
Typical mistakes
- Private nuisance is neighbour law on a threshold, § 906 BGB, an owner must tolerate an immaterial or ortsüblich and unpreventable interference, so translating nuisance as an automatic wrong overstates a claim that only arises past the threshold.
- The claim to stop or remove a nuisance is the Abwehranspruch, § 1004 BGB, not a damages action by default, so nuisance must not be read as simply a claim for money.
- Belästigung or Ärgernis is an annoyance in the ordinary sense, not the property-law concept, so the reflex rendering of nuisance loses the § 906 standard.
What matters
Neighbour and land-use disputes meet a tolerance threshold: a German owner must accept an interference that is immaterial or ortsüblich and not reasonably preventable, § 906 BGB, and only beyond it does the Abwehranspruch to stop it arise, § 1004 BGB. The clause treating every nuisance as immediately actionable has ignored the threshold § 906 builds in.
What the machine misses
Nuisance arrives as Belästigung or Ärgernis in machine output, an annoyance in the everyday sense, and the property-law standard is lost, a private nuisance is an Immission tested against § 906 BGB, a threshold an owner must tolerate up to and can act on only beyond. So a translated nuisance reads as a general grievance when German makes it a measured neighbour-law question, and the actual remedy, der Abwehranspruch to have the interference removed or restrained, § 1004 BGB, drops out of view.
Examples
| a private nuisance | eine unzumutbare Immission |
| to abate a nuisance | die Störung beseitigen |
| the interference is substantial | die Beeinträchtigung ist wesentlich |
| a claim in nuisance | der nachbarrechtliche Abwehranspruch |
More notes on these sections
injunction einstweilige Verfügung
defamation üble Nachrede