Buying property with a partner in Germany: what unmarried couples need to know

Buying a home together is exciting, and in Germany, if you're not married, it also comes with legal gaps that married couples simply don't have to think about. German law gives spouses a set of automatic protections around shared property, debt, and inheritance that unmarried partners, however long you've been together, don't get by default. None of this should stop you from buying together. It just means a few things are worth setting up deliberately rather than assuming they'll sort themselves out.

How ownership shares work: Miteigentum

When an unmarried couple buys property together, you typically become co-owners under Miteigentum nach Bruchteilen, fractional co-ownership, where each of you holds a defined share of the property. These shares don't have to be 50/50, they're often set to reflect how much each partner actually contributes to the purchase price and deposit, and they're recorded in Abteilung I of the Grundbuch alongside both your names. Our guide to the Grundbuch explains how ownership is recorded in more detail.

Getting the share percentage right at the notary matters more than it might seem. If you contribute unequally now but the contract records a 50/50 split, that mismatch can have tax and legal implications later, particularly if you separate.

Are you both liable for the mortgage?

If you apply for the mortgage jointly, both of you are typically liable for the full loan as Gesamtschuldner, joint and several debtors, regardless of your ownership share. This means the bank can pursue either partner for the entire outstanding balance if payments stop, not just each person's proportional share. Your ownership percentage in the Grundbuch and your liability on the loan are two separate things, and it's worth being clear-eyed about both before you sign.

The GbR alternative

Some couples structure their purchase through a GbR (Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts, a civil law partnership) instead of buying directly as individuals. In this structure, the GbR itself is entered in the Grundbuch as the owner, and a separate partnership agreement sets out each partner's share, contribution, and what happens if one of you wants to exit or if the relationship ends. This adds a layer of setup, and typically legal costs, but it gives you a documented framework for exactly the questions that otherwise get resolved informally, or acrimoniously, later.

What happens if you separate?

This is where the absence of marital protections shows up most clearly. Married couples in Germany fall under a default matrimonial property regime (Zugewinngemeinschaft) that governs how shared assets are divided on divorce. Unmarried couples have no equivalent. If you separate and can't agree on what happens to the property, whether one of you buys out the other, or you sell and split proceeds, the fallback under German law is a Teilungsversteigerung, a forced auction to divide the proceeds. This is a genuinely bad outcome for both parties: forced sales routinely fetch below market value, and the process is public, slow, and adversarial. A written co-ownership agreement, ideally drawn up before or shortly after you buy, is the practical way to avoid ever needing to reach for this option.

The inheritance gap unmarried couples don't expect

This is the single most consequential gap, and the one most couples don't think about until it's relevant. German inheritance law gives spouses automatic statutory inheritance rights. It gives unmarried partners none. If one of you dies without a will, the surviving partner has no automatic legal claim to the deceased partner's share of the property, it passes to the deceased's legal heirs, children, parents, or other relatives under German intestacy rules, regardless of how long you lived together or how the mortgage was actually paid.

Writing a will fixes the inheritance itself, but not the tax treatment. Even with a will naming your partner, an unmarried partner falls into Germany's Steuerklasse III for inheritance tax purposes, the same category as an unrelated party, with only a 20,000 euro tax-free allowance and rates running from 30 to 50 percent on the rest. A spouse, by comparison, gets a 500,000 euro allowance. On a jointly owned property share worth several hundred thousand euros, that difference can mean the surviving partner owing a genuinely large, sudden tax bill on an asset they may already be living in.

Example: if your share of the property is worth 400,000 € and you leave it to your unmarried partner by will, they'd owe inheritance tax on 380,000 € after the 20,000 € allowance, at rates up to 50%, a bill potentially well over 100,000 €. A spouse inheriting the same amount would owe nothing, since it falls entirely within the 500,000 € spousal allowance.

Practical steps to protect yourselves

A few concrete steps close most of these gaps. Put a written co-ownership agreement in place, covering ownership shares, what happens if one partner wants to sell, and how mortgage payments are handled if incomes change. Each write a will explicitly naming your partner, since without one, they inherit nothing automatically regardless of your intentions. And given the inheritance tax gap can't be written away, some couples take out life insurance specifically sized to cover the expected tax bill, so the surviving partner isn't forced to sell the home just to pay it. None of these steps are unique to buying property, but a joint purchase is exactly the moment they become financially significant rather than theoretical.

Getting the ownership right at the notary

When you reach the notary appointment, make sure the ownership percentages, and each partner's name, are recorded exactly as you intend. This is straightforward to get right at signing and considerably harder to correct afterward. Our guide to property purchase contracts covers what else to check in the contract before you sign.

Buying together as an unmarried couple in Germany is common and entirely workable. The legal framework just assumes less on your behalf than it does for married couples, which means a bit more deliberate planning closes the gap.

As of September 2026. This is a general overview of German property and inheritance law as it applies to unmarried couples, not legal or tax advice. For your specific situation, consult a German lawyer, notary, or tax adviser.