Commercial lease agreement
December 21, 2010 | 35,00 EUR | answered by Dr. Dr. Danjel-Philippe Newerla
I have signed a commercial lease agreement at short notice.
This runs for 8 years.
I signed this contract while on business in the USA, therefore ratified, signed, scanned, and sent the pages by email.
The landlord has already asked me several times to sign the contract in the original.
Question: Is the requirement of the "written form" clearly not met here so that the 8-year term no longer applies and the contract has automatically turned into an indefinite contract? Or are there legal pitfalls here?
Dear inquirer,
Thank you for your inquiry. I would like to answer it as follows:
Without having legally examined the contract conclusively, there is unfortunately no way to assess whether and, if so, what pitfalls are associated with this contract.
Regarding the question of written form, it must be said that there is unfortunately (as is often the case in the legal field) legal uncertainty. The case law is not uniform on this issue. Some courts consider a scanned signature to be sufficient as written form within the meaning of § 126 of the German Civil Code, while others do not.
Below, I have attached an interesting link on this topic:
http://www.rechtslupe.de/steuerrecht/die-klage-mit-der-eingescannten-unterschrift-321828
In my opinion, you should quickly sign the original document by hand for your own security and send it to the landlord by registered mail.
I hope this provides you with an initial legal orientation and wish you much success and all the best!
I would like to point out the following:
The legal advice I have provided is based solely on the information you have provided. My response is only an initial legal assessment of the situation and cannot replace a comprehensive assessment of the facts. Adding or omitting relevant information can lead to a completely different legal assessment.
I hope my explanations have been helpful. You are welcome to contact me via email or the follow-up option.
I wish you a pleasant Tuesday afternoon!
Kind regards from the North Sea coast,
Dipl.-Jur. Danjel-Philippe Newerla, Attorney at Law
Stresemannstr. 46
27570 Bremerhaven
kanzlei.newerla@web.de
Fax.0471/140244
