tenancy in common
noun · Miteigentum
Miteigentum nach Bruchteilen for a tenancy in common, § 1008 BGB, each co-owner holding a distinct share they can sell or charge on their own, § 747 BGB. But joint tenancy, co-ownership with the right of survivorship, has no German equivalent, a Bruchteil does not accrue to the others on death, it passes to the heirs. Mietgemeinschaft, a shared tenancy, is the machine’s howler, that confuses co-ownership with a lease.
Which translation, when
Why
Co-ownership is one idea in German and two in English, and the survivorship that separates the English forms simply does not exist in the German default. A tenancy in common, co-owners holding distinct undivided shares, maps onto Miteigentum nach Bruchteilen, § 1008 BGB, governed by the Gemeinschaft rules, § 741 BGB and following, where each co-owner has an ideal share, ein Bruchteil, that they may sell, charge or bequeath on their own, § 747 BGB, and any co-owner may demand the ending of the community, § 749 BGB. What has no German counterpart is the joint tenancy, the English co-ownership with the right of survivorship, on a co-owner’s death their share does not accrue to the others, it falls into their estate and passes to the heirs, so a survivorship arrangement must be built specially, it is not the default. Alongside Bruchteilseigentum stands das Gesamthandseigentum, joint ownership without individually disposable shares, the form of an Erbengemeinschaft, a different structure again. So tenancy in common is Miteigentum nach Bruchteilen, and the danger is the word tenancy, which also means a lease, a machine reaching for Mietgemeinschaft or gemeinsame Miete turns co-ownership of a thing into a shared rental, an outright error.
Typical mistakes
- A tenancy in common is co-ownership, Miteigentum nach Bruchteilen, § 1008 BGB, not a lease, so rendering it as a Mietgemeinschaft or gemeinsame Miete confuses owning a thing in shares with renting one together.
- Joint tenancy with survivorship has no German default, a Bruchteil passes to the heirs on death, § 747 BGB, so translating joint tenancy as ordinary Miteigentum silently drops the survivorship the English form carries.
- Each co-owner may dispose of their own share and demand partition, § 747, § 749 BGB, so a tenancy in common must not be read as a locked joint holding.
What matters
Co-ownership clauses meet a missing survivorship: German Miteigentum nach Bruchteilen gives each owner a separately disposable share, § 747 BGB, and a share passes to the heirs on death, there is no automatic accrual to the others. The clause importing a joint tenancy’s survivorship into plain Miteigentum has written an effect the BGB does not supply by default.
What the machine misses
Tenancy in common comes back as Mietgemeinschaft or gemeinsame Miete in machine output, and that is co-ownership confused with a lease, the German for a tenancy in common is Miteigentum nach Bruchteilen, § 1008 BGB, owning a thing in shares, not renting it together. So a translated tenancy in common can turn co-owners of a house into joint renters of a flat, and the joint tenancy’s survivorship, which German co-ownership does not carry by default, vanishes on top, a Bruchteil passing to the heirs, § 747 BGB, not to the other owners.
Examples
| a tenancy in common | das Miteigentum nach Bruchteilen |
| an undivided share | der ideelle Bruchteil |
| the right of survivorship | das Recht auf Anwachsung |
| to end the co-ownership | die Gemeinschaft aufheben |