Monument protection; orders for conservation measures

The owners of monuments are legally obliged to maintain and repair their monuments, to treat them properly and to protect them from danger, insofar as this can be reasonably expected of them. Under certain conditions, other groups of people are also obliged to do this. If these obligations are not fulfilled, the lower monument protection authorities (districts, independent cities, large district towns) have several options:

They can issue what is known as a "monument protection order". This is an administrative act by which an owner or other obligated party is ordered to carry out certain conservation measures or at least to tolerate someone else carrying out these measures. They can also carry out absolutely necessary measures directly themselves or have them carried out by others.

Actions that damage or endanger a listed building can be prohibited.

In both cases, the authority must take particular care to ensure that nothing unreasonable is demanded of the obligated party.

Administrative court action

Monument protection orders are free of charge. However, the authority can impose such an order on a monument owner to have certain conservation measures carried out at his expense or to bear all or part of the costs for measures that it carries out itself.