Lärmbelästigung in Germany: § 906 BGB, the Unterlassungsanspruch and the Lärmprotokoll

Lärmbelästigung is the single most common neighbour dispute in Germany, and it is also the one most often approached from the wrong direction. People reach first for a clock time, asking whether the noise happened during Ruhezeit, when the legal test that actually decides a private noise claim between two properties has nothing to do with the hour at all.

German law runs neighbour noise on two separate tracks that are easy to confuse. One is public law: the Ordnungsamt, the municipal Ordnung and § 117 OWiG, which can result in a Verwarnung or a Geldbuße against the person making the noise. The other is private law: § 906 BGB and § 1004 BGB, which govern what one property owner has to put up with from the next and what can be demanded when the line is crossed.

The two tracks have different tests, different decision makers and different outcomes, and pursuing one does not exclude the other. This page explains both, plus the evidence a German court expects to see, and the separate route open to a tenant, whose claim usually runs against their own landlord rather than against the noisy neighbour.

Information last verified on 20 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

The starting point: ownership is not absolute

§ 903 BGB states the basic position. The owner of a thing may, so far as statute or the rights of third parties do not conflict, deal with it as they please and exclude others from any interference. Read alone it sounds like a licence to do whatever you like on your own land.

The qualification in that sentence carries the weight. German neighbour law is a body of statutory limits on that freedom, and § 906 BGB is the most important one for noise. It defines the point at which one owner's use of their land stops being their own business and becomes something the neighbour can act on.

The § 906 BGB test, step by step

§ 906 Abs. 1 BGB lists what it covers: gases, vapours, odours, smoke, soot, warmth, Geräusch, vibrations and similar effects emanating from another property. Noise is expressly in the list. The owner cannot prohibit those effects insofar as they do not impair the use of their property, or impair it only insubstantially.

The provision then supplies a measuring stick that stops the word insubstantial being a pure matter of taste. As a rule an impairment is insubstantial where the limit values or guide values laid down in statutes or ordinances are not exceeded, measured and assessed according to those same rules. The sentence that follows extends the same treatment to values in general administrative rules issued under § 48 BImSchG that reflect the state of the art, which is how the TA Lärm enters a private neighbour dispute.

That is why a decibel measurement can matter in a case that has nothing to do with a regulatory authority. It is also why the answer to whether a given noise is actionable is genuinely area dependent: the reference values differ between a reines Wohngebiet, an allgemeines Wohngebiet, a Mischgebiet and an industrial area, so the same sound level can be within the norm on one street and over it on another.

The second filter: ortsübliche Benutzung

§ 906 Abs. 2 BGB adds a filter that surprises people. Even a wesentliche Beeinträchtigung has to be tolerated where it is caused by an ortsübliche, locally customary, use of the other property and cannot be prevented by measures that are economically reasonable for users of that kind.

This is the provision that protects long standing local activity. A working farm in a rural area, a bakery starting before dawn in a district where that has always happened, or a Biergarten in a quarter built around them, can all be examples of ortsübliche Benutzung, and the answer depends on the character of the specific area rather than on a national list.

The balance is not one sided. Where an owner has to tolerate the effect under that rule, § 906 Abs. 2 Satz 2 BGB allows them to demand an appropriate Ausgleich in Geld from the user of the other property, where the effect impairs a locally customary use of their own property or its yield beyond the reasonable measure. The remedy shifts from stopping the activity to compensating for it.

§ 1004 BGB: what can actually be demanded

Once the § 906 BGB analysis says the interference does not have to be tolerated, § 1004 BGB supplies the remedy. Where ownership is impaired other than by dispossession or withholding of possession, the owner may demand from the Störer, the disturber, the removal of the impairment. Where further impairments are to be feared, the owner may sue for Unterlassung.

That second sentence is the one that matters in a noise case, because noise is by nature repeating rather than a single permanent state. The Unterlassungsanspruch is the claim to have the conduct stopped going forward, and it is the claim a Landgericht or Amtsgericht is normally being asked to enforce.

§ 1004 Abs. 2 BGB then closes the loop: the claim is excluded where the owner is obliged to tolerate the interference. § 906 BGB is the principal source of that obligation. This is why the two provisions are always read as a pair, and why a claim that ignores the toleration question is incomplete before it starts.

§ 907 BGB is worth noting alongside them for a related but distinct situation. It lets an owner demand that Anlagen, installations, not be erected or maintained on the neighbouring land where it is certain to be foreseeable that their existence or use will produce an inadmissible effect. § 907 Abs. 2 BGB expressly excludes trees and shrubs from the concept of an Anlage, which is one reason planting is governed by the separate Land law regime described at hedges, trees and boundary distances.

The Lärmprotokoll

The Lärmprotokoll is not a statutory instrument. It is the evidential practice German courts and landlords have converged on, and its absence is the most common reason a genuine noise problem produces nothing.

A usable Lärmprotokoll records, for each incident, the date, the day of the week, the time the noise started, the time it ended, the type of noise, its intensity in ordinary descriptive terms, and its concrete effect, for example that it was audible with windows closed or that it prevented sleep. Entries made on the day are worth considerably more than a list reconstructed from memory months later.

Two details raise its value further. Naming any witness who also perceived the noise, such as another resident, converts a one sided account into something corroborated. And recording the quiet periods as well as the loud ones is more persuasive than a document that only lists grievances, because it shows the author is describing a pattern rather than building a case.

One caution belongs here. Making a covert audio recording of what is spoken in a neighbouring flat is not a neutral evidence gathering step under German law, and the rules on that are set out separately at neighbour surveillance cameras. A written protocol carries no such difficulty.

When the Ordnungsamt is the right address

The public law track belongs to the municipality. The Ordnungsamt enforces the local Ordnung, including whatever Nachtruhe and Sonn- und Feiertagsruhe rules it contains, and it enforces 32. BImSchV § 7 on garden and building machinery. Outside office hours the Polizei may attend a live disturbance and record it, and that record often reaches the Ordnungsamt afterwards.

§ 117 OWiG is the general provision behind that enforcement. It makes it an Ordnungswidrigkeit to create noise without a legitimate reason, or to an impermissible or avoidable extent, where the noise is capable of substantially disturbing the public or the neighbourhood or damaging somebody's health. It carries a Geldbuße of up to 5.000 EUR, and only where the conduct cannot be sanctioned under other provisions.

The practical dividing line is simple to state. The Ordnungsamt is the right address for a recurring breach of a local rule, and it is the wrong address for a request to make a neighbour permanently stop a lawful but irritating activity. That second request is a private law claim. The clock time rules the Ordnungsamt enforces are covered at quiet hours in Germany, including why the familiar 22:00 to 06:00 window is a local rule rather than a federal one.

The tenancy route: a claim against your own landlord

For tenants this is often the most useful part of the picture, and it is the part most often missed. Under § 536 BGB, where the rented property has a defect that removes or reduces its suitability for the contractual use, the rent is reduced accordingly for the period concerned. Persistent noise from outside the flat can constitute such a defect, and the claim runs against the landlord who owes the tenant an undisturbed property, not against the neighbour who is making the noise.

§ 536c BGB attaches a condition that decides many of these cases before they begin: the tenant must notify the landlord of the defect without delay. A tenant who endures noise silently for a year and then raises it retrospectively is in a materially weaker position than one who wrote to the landlord in the first month, because the notification is what puts the landlord in a position to act.

A worked illustration of the arithmetic

Assume a Bruttomiete, the total rent including the Nebenkosten advance, of 900 EUR a month. German case law applies a reduction percentage to that gross figure rather than to the Kaltmiete. If a court were to assess a particular level of disturbance at 10 percent, the arithmetic gives 90 EUR a month, and for four affected months 360 EUR in total.

The percentage is the part that cannot be read off a table. It is fixed case by case on the specific facts, and published decisions on comparable noise range widely, so the figure above is arithmetic rather than a prediction. The mechanics of that assessment, and the risks of reducing the rent unilaterally rather than under reservation, are covered at rent reduction in Germany.

A note on what this page does not do

This page explains the rules. It does not assess anybody's individual dispute, evaluate the prospects of a particular claim or recommend a course of action against a named neighbour or landlord. Under § 2 RDG, advice on an individual case is a regulated Rechtsdienstleistung in Germany, and it is reserved to those permitted to provide it. Readers with a live dispute should take advice from a Rechtsanwalt or, where they are a member, from a Mieterverein. The wider area is mapped at German neighbour law, and other topics at German law explained.

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