Buying a House in Germany as a Finnish Buyer: No Housing Company

In Finland you buy shares in a housing company. In Germany you buy the flat itself, and there is no company to buy into.

A Finnish flat is an asunto-osake, shares in a housing company whose own loans form part of what you pay. A German flat is Wohnungseigentum, ownership of the unit, defined by a deed called the Teilungserklärung. The monthly charge is Hausgeld and the building's savings sit in the Instandhaltungsrücklage.

Tax to acquire a home, Finland against Germany

What you buy	Rate (%)
Finland, asunto-osake		1.5%
Finland, real property		3.0%
Germany (federal default)		3.5%
Germany (top of the range)		6.5%

What replaces the asunto-osake in Germany?

Nothing does, and that is the whole adjustment. The Wissenschaftliche Dienste, the research service of the German Bundestag, explains the structure in its briefing Rechtsfragen des ausländischen Immobilienerwerbs in Deutschland, reference WD 7-3000-036/22: a building fixed to the ground cannot be owned separately from the land, but since the 1950s German law has allowed ownership of an individual residential unit inside a building, detached from the plot. That is Wohnungseigentum, and the briefing notes it is acquired on the same terms as land itself.

Three swaps follow. The Teilungserklärung, the deed of division, defines your unit and the common parts, replacing the articles of association you would read at home. Hausgeld, the monthly service charge, replaces the housing company charge. And the money set aside for the roof is the Instandhaltungsrücklage, a fund inside the owners' association rather than a company balance sheet with its own borrowing.

Does a Finn need permission to buy?

No. The same briefing finds no special substantive restrictions on acquiring German property that attach to foreign nationality or to a foreign residence: no permit, no residence test. It does flag one formal point, that particularities at registration can arise for married couples where at least one spouse does not hold German citizenship, so put that to the Notar early.

How much is Grunderwerbsteuer, and who sets the rate?

Each Bundesland sets it, and the range is 3.5% to 6.5%. North Rhine-Westphalia sits at the top of that range: Finanzamt NRW, the state tax administration, charges 6.5% on every contract notarised since 1 January 2015. Grunderwerbsteuer is the tax on the transfer of real property, and paragraph 11 of the Grunderwerbsteuergesetz, the transfer tax act, states the federal default in one line: "Die Steuer beträgt 3,5 vom Hundert", the tax is 3.5 per cent. Since 1 September 2006, Article 105(2a) of the Grundgesetz, the German constitution, has let each Land deviate. We do not print a per-Land table here, because no single official source we could verify publishes one. Check the rate of the Land the property sits in; there is no national figure to plan against.

At home the split is by asset type. Verohallinto, the Finnish Tax Administration, charges varainsiirtovero at 3% on real property and 1.5% on housing company shares, on the velaton kauppahinta, the debt free price, which for an asunto-osake includes your share of the company's loans. Verohallinto's guidance on the ensiasunnon varainsiirtoverovapaus records that the first home exemption was repealed with effect from 1 January 2024, in the same package that cut the rates to their present 3% and 1.5%.

For scale: on a 400,000 euro German flat the tax is 14,000 euro at the 3.5% default and 26,000 euro where the Land charges 6.5%, against 6,000 euro on an asunto-osake at the same debt free price. That is arithmetic on the published rates. Germany has no housing company and so no company loan to fold in, so ask the Notar what the German tax is assessed on rather than reasoning from the Finnish base.

From kaupanvahvistaja to Notar

A Finnish sale is witnessed; a German sale is conducted. Finland uses a kaupanvahvistaja, a public purchase witness. Germany requires a Notar, a public notary who is mandatory and acts for both parties, so nobody in the room represents only you. The Notar drafts the Kaufvertrag, the purchase contract, and reads it aloud, and signing at that reading is the binding moment.

The Bundestag briefing adds a constraint that matters from Helsinki: the declarations for the Auflassung, the agreement transferring ownership, can be made only before a Notar established in Germany, or abroad before a German consular officer. An Auflassungsvormerkung, a priority notice, then holds your place in the Grundbuch, the land register.

Who files the transfer tax, you or the registry?

In Finland you do, and in Germany the registry waits for the tax office. Verohallinto expects the buyer to report and pay varainsiirtovero on their own initiative through OmaVero, its online service. Germany reverses that pressure: under paragraph 22 of the Grunderwerbsteuergesetz, a buyer may be entered in the Grundbuch only once the tax office produces its Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung, the clearance certificate, which it issues once the Grunderwerbsteuer has been paid, secured or deferred. The Eigentumsumschreibung, the change of registered owner, comes last.

Who pays the Makler, and how much?

Since 23 December 2020 the buyer cannot be made to carry more than half. Sections 656a to 656d of the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, the German civil code, govern the Makler, the estate agent, on sales of a flat or a single family house. Under section 656d, where only one side engaged the Makler, an agreement making the other side pay holds only if the engaging side stays liable for at least the same amount, and the buyer's share falls due only once the seller has paid and shown proof.

What nobody hands you

Five documents carry the risk, and none arrives unasked: the Kaufvertrag, the Grundbuchauszug showing the owner and every charge on the property, the Energieausweis for energy performance, the Teilungserklärung defining what is yours and what is common, and the Baulastenverzeichnis recording public law obligations on the plot. Grundsteuer, the annual municipal property tax, then recurs alongside the Hausgeld, and municipalities move it, as Duisburg did when it lifted residential bills by 32% in 2026, covered in our piece on the Grundsteuer ruling.

Where the numbers stop

Nobody counts foreign buyers in Germany. The Bundestag briefing says it plainly: as far as can be seen, no statistics exist for the German property market on the share of foreign buyers. We cannot tell you how many German homes Finns buy, and neither can anyone citing a primary source.

We do not give buying or selling advice, and nothing here says whether a German property is worth buying. What the sources support is checkable: Wohnungseigentum instead of an asunto-osake, a Teilungserklärung instead of company articles, a 3.5% federal default each Land may raise to 6.5%, and a registry that will not name you as owner until the tax office signs off. Our guide to buying in Spain as a Finn runs the same comparison against a very different market.

AiMYNDi reads the listing, the building's accounts and the legal paperwork for a specific property, so a charge in the Grundbuch or a thin maintenance reserve surfaces before the Notar appointment rather than after it. You can see an example of what a report looks like first.