Documentation duties towards owners (2026)
Documentation duties towards owners
From the management contract as an agency: notify, inform, account, and hand over (§§ 666, 667 BGB).
Handover records and photos therefore belong to the owner and must be handed over in full, no later than the end of the management contract.
§§ 666, 667 BGBIn 60 seconds
A management contract is a paid Geschäftsbesorgungsvertrag (agency contract, § 675 BGB), so the duties of an agent apply.
Under § 666 BGB you must keep the owner informed unprompted, answer questions about how the management is going, and account for it afterwards.
Under § 667 BGB everything received for the job or produced by it must be handed over: handover records, photos and meter readings among them.
They are not the manager's internal working materials: no later than the end of the management contract they must be handed over in full.
Records that cannot be cleanly split by property become a problem at exactly that point.
What the law says
The agent must give the principal the necessary notices, answer questions about how the management is going, and account for it afterwards (§ 666 BGB). They must hand over to the principal everything they receive for the performance of the mandate and everything they obtain from conducting the business (§ 667 BGB). Working translation; the German original is the binding text.
What that means at handover
| Duty | At handover |
|---|---|
| Notice (§ 666 BGB) | Inform the owner about damage, vacancy, disputes |
| Information (§ 666 BGB) | Make records and photos available on request |
| Account (§ 666 BGB) | Break the deposit statement down traceably |
| Hand over (§ 667 BGB) | The complete property file at contract end |
| Care (§ 280 BGB) | Document the condition so claims stay enforceable |
How long you keep them follows the deadlines: 6 months from return (§ 548 Abs. 1 BGB), 12 months' objection period on operating costs, 3 years' general limitation (§ 195 BGB).
What it means for each side
- You are entitled to an identical copy of the record and the same photos as the manager.
- Ask for the evidence a deposit statement rests on.
- How long records are kept follows the deadlines that apply to you.
- Without a traceable breakdown you need not accept a statement.
- Keep the property file per unit, not per calendar year or member of staff.
- Tell the owner about damage, vacancy and disputes without being asked.
- Break the deposit statement down so the owner can follow it.
- Hold the data so it remains separable and handover-ready per property.
Common mistakes
They belong to the owner and must be handed over under § 667 BGB.
At the end of the contract that is exactly what becomes the problem.
§ 666 BGB requires you to speak up unprompted where the situation calls for it.
Six months, twelve months and three years run differently, the longest applicable period governs retention.
What to do next
Set up the property file per unit: move-in and move-out records with photos, meter readings, keys, correspondence. Do it with BildProof, about two minutes a room →
Document what you told the owner, and when.
Break the deposit statement down so the owner can follow it.
Set retention by the deadlines: 6 months (§ 548 Abs. 1 BGB), 12 months' objection period, 3 years' general limitation (§ 195 BGB).
Frequently asked questions
What information and accounting duties does a property manager have?
The management agreement is a paid Geschäftsbesorgungsvertrag (§ 675 BGB), to which § 666 BGB applies. Under it the manager owes three things: to keep the owner informed unprompted, to answer questions about how the management is going, and to account for it afterwards. The precise scope follows in addition from the individual agreement.
Who owns the handover records and photos?
The owner. Under § 667 BGB the agent must hand over everything received for the job and everything produced by it, and that includes the records created while managing the property. They go over in full no later than the end of the management agreement, not selectively.
Is the manager liable if a claim fails for lack of documentation?
It is possible. The manager owes performance with due care; a culpable breach of a duty under the management agreement can give rise to damages under § 280(1) BGB. Whether a breach exists in a given case depends on the specific agreement and circumstances. It cannot be answered in the abstract. What is not in doubt: a condition that was never documented is hard to explain to the owner.
How long should handover records be kept?
At least as long as claims can be derived from them. Claims for deterioration of the rented property expire six months after return (§ 548(1) BGB), the standard limitation period is three years (§ 195 BGB), and records for the Betriebskostenabrechnung (operating-cost statement) are needed until the twelve-month objection period runs out (§ 556(3) sentence 4 BGB). Tax and commercial retention duties may apply on top.
Must the manager give the owner access to the records?
Yes, that is the core of the information duty under § 666 BGB: the owner must be able to see how their property is being managed. In practice that means making handover records, photos, deposit settlements and correspondence available on request, in a form that is comprehensible rather than one that has to be reconstructed first.
What belongs in a defensible property file?
Per unit: the tenancy agreement with annexes, the move-in record with photos, every defect notice and how it was resolved, meter readings at each change, the key list, the move-out record with photos, the deposit settlement, and the Wohnungsgeberbestätigungen. What matters is less the completeness of individual documents than an unbroken chain across the whole tenancy.
This page gives general information as at the date shown. It does not replace legal advice on an individual case.