Duty of Care for Commercial Properties: What Operators Must Provide

Anyone who owns or operates a commercial property in Germany has a duty to keep it reasonably safe for the people who use it — employees, customers, delivery drivers, visitors. That duty, known as Verkehrssicherungspflicht, isn't written out in a single law with a fixed checklist. It comes from case law built on the German Civil Code (BGB) and requires property operators to identify foreseeable hazards and take reasonable steps to prevent them. For a commercial site, that covers a wide range of everyday things — walkways, stairs, lighting, winter service, trees, facades — and getting it wrong carries real liability. This article looks at what the duty actually requires, who is responsible for it, what a breach can cost, and what it looks like in practice on a typical commercial site.

The legal basis for Verkehrssicherungspflicht isn't a single dedicated statute. It's built on Section 823 of the German Civil Code (BGB), which creates liability for damages when someone is injured or property is damaged, combined with a body of court rulings that have defined what “reasonable” safety measures look like in practice. The standard isn't zero risk — courts don't expect a property to be hazard-free in every conceivable way — but operators do have to identify foreseeable dangers and take the steps that can reasonably be expected given the type of property, how intensively it's used, and the circumstances.
For a commercial site specifically, that standard sits higher than for a private home, because commercial properties see delivery traffic, higher footfall, and a broader mix of visitors who aren't familiar with the layout. Retail premises, in particular, combine customer areas with loading and service areas that carry different risk profiles — and both fall under the same underlying duty.

In practice, Verkehrssicherungspflicht for a commercial property tends to break down into a recurring set of areas:

• Walkways and stairs: regular checks for trip hazards — loose paving, damaged steps, missing handrails — plus adequate lighting so hazards are visible.
• Winter service: clearing and gritting paths within the property boundary during icy or snowy conditions, on a defined and documented schedule.
• Facades and roofs: periodic checks for loose cladding, damaged guttering, or anything that could fall and injure someone below.
• Trees and grounds: regular inspections of trees for stability and dead branches, with prompt action on anything found.
• Technical systems: maintaining safety-relevant equipment — lighting, barriers, automatic doors — according to the manufacturer's and operator's requirements.
• Construction and repair zones: securing any area under active work so it doesn't create a hazard for people passing through.

Responsibility starts with the property owner, but it doesn't have to end there. Specific duties — winter service is the clearest example — can be transferred to a tenant or an external service provider by contract, typically through the lease or the building rules. Courts have also confirmed that a landlord's winter service duty is generally limited to the property boundary, not the full length of public pavement, unless a municipal ordinance assigns that responsibility to the adjoining property.

• Delegating a task doesn't mean delegating the responsibility for it happening. Even after handing off winter service or facade checks to a contractor, the property owner still has to monitor that the work is actually being carried out — courts have been clear that the underlying duty can't be fully passed on. In a commercial lease, this split of responsibility usually needs to be spelled out explicitly, since general clauses about “upkeep” aren't enough to shift the duty.

If someone is injured because a hazard wasn't addressed, the consequences go beyond a single claim. The property operator can be liable for damages and pain-and-suffering compensation, and courts will also weigh whether the injured person shares some responsibility for what happened. Liability insurance — building or business liability cover — is the usual first line of defence, but insurers generally expect a timely report of any incident, and claims can get complicated if the required checks weren't documented.
Documentation matters here almost as much as the work itself. Being able to show what was checked, when, and what was done about it is often what determines whether a claim against the operator holds up — a walkway that was actually gritted on schedule is a weak position to defend if there's no record showing it happened.

Wowworks is a B2B facility management partner in Germany. Rather than a property operator coordinating grounds maintenance, winter service, and building checks separately, Wowworks selects and manages the right specialist for a site's outdoor areas and general upkeep (Außenanlagen) — scheduling regular checks, organising winter service, and keeping a record of what was done, so operators have something to show if a duty-of-care question ever comes up.