title
noun · Eigentum
Eigentum for ownership, Rechtsinhaberschaft where the right is not a thing, never Titel. The German Titel exists and means something else, the instrument a judgment is enforced from, so the false friend does not merely miss, it points at the wrong branch of law.
Which translation, when
Why
Title in a sale or security document is ownership language, who owns, when ownership passes, whether it is clean. German handles all of that without any cognate of title: ownership is Eigentum, it passes by Übereignung under §§ 929 ff. BGB, a seller answers for the thing being free of third-party rights, § 435 BGB, and where the asset is a claim or an IP right the German text speaks of Inhaberschaft. The German word Titel meanwhile is fully occupied, it is the Vollstreckungstitel, the judgment or notarial deed enforcement proceeds from, §§ 704, 794 ZPO. So guter Titel is not a weak translation of good title, it is a phrase that sends the reader to enforcement law, and retention of title, the commonest title phrase in cross-border sales, has a fixed German name of its own, the Eigentumsvorbehalt of § 449 BGB, output that builds anything around Titel there has missed a term every German lawyer knows.
Typical mistakes
- Guter Titel reads as a statement about enforcement instruments, a German lawyer wonders which judgment is meant, good title is Eigentum frei von Rechten Dritter, § 435 BGB.
- Titel an den Waren for title to the goods is residue, German says Eigentum an den Waren, and the passing of title is the Eigentumsübergang, §§ 929 ff. BGB.
- Retention of title has one German name, Eigentumsvorbehalt, § 449 BGB, anything assembled from Titel marks the clause as machine work.
What matters
Sale and supply documents live on the word: title passes on payment in full is the seller’s security, and the German clause is the Eigentumsvorbehalt, ownership passing only with complete payment, § 449 BGB. Built around Titel instead, the clause gestures at enforcement law, and the one protection the seller cared about is no longer stated in the words German law recognises.
What the machine misses
Translation engines print Titel for title with the confidence of a cognate, and the German word walks off into enforcement law, where a Titel is what a judgment is executed from. Good title becomes guter Titel, a phrase no German sale contract contains, and the ownership guarantee the English text gave, freedom of the goods from third-party rights, dissolves into a word about judgments.
Examples
| good title | lastenfreies Eigentum |
| title passes on delivery | das Eigentum geht mit Lieferung über |
| retention of title | Eigentumsvorbehalt |
| title to a claim | die Inhaberschaft an einer Forderung |