General bankruptcy inquiry in Germany A person lives in Germany and owns a business which is in debt. They are afraid they will lose their child and be sent to "debt jail". Is this a real possibility? Is there any liability protection between an individual and their business in Germany?
As in most of the world, there is a BIG difference between a person running a business and a person owning a company which runs a business. In the first case, the person is liable for all the debts of the business, in the second case, providing they have fulfilled the legal duties as am owner/director (as applicable) they are not liable for the debts of the company. One of those legal duties is to stop racking up debts you can't pay. In either case, your friend needs professional advice (legal and/or accounting) NOW! A person who is insolvent (cannot pay their debts as and when they fall due) can seek protection from their creditors through bankruptcy. German bankruptcy law, by most standards, is brutal but not so brutal as to take away parenting rights or put the person in jail.
germany German Länder do not provide any citizenship-like benefits. You are a resident and that determines your administrative duties like where you register your car, which public school you can go to, where and which taxes you have to pay etc. Some places in Germany differentiate their services between &quot;locals&quot; and &quot;others&quot;, for example beach access in tourist cities is sometimes locked behind a fee to non-locals (aka tourists). But that never depends on federal state, but on way smaller units. Residents of one beach town might be &quot;tourists&quot; 20km down the road at the next city's beach. It is more of a &quot;the people whose taxes allow us to maintain this, go for free&quot; approach. Outside of badly translated internet forms originally made for the US, I have never been asked for my Bundesland. The Bundesland is not printed on our national ID cards. Although anybody with a little knowledge of geography (or access to Google) can find out your Bundesland by just looking up the actual address that is printed on the ID card, the information of which Bundesland this is is really not important outside of government bureaucracy.
You can search for study programs via Hochschulkompass. There’s essentially just the Bachelor of Laws attainable at the Fernuniversität in Hagen. You can also do the First Legal Examination there, but if you really wanna become a Volljurist, i.e. a judge or an attorney, you will inevitably have to come to Germany, because the Referendariat can only be done here. Note, AFAIK it is not necessary to be an EU citizen to study, but you have to be a German to do any of the typical legal professions here, e.g. being appointed as a judge → § 9 no. 1 DRiG. Naturalization is an entirely different issue, but I’ll rather mention that right away.
As someone who acts for both landlords and tenants I would say that I have never seen exclusions for personal injury or death in a commercial lease. I would recommend that you have the whole lease reviewed by a solicitor dealing in commercial property, particularly as, as has been stated in another reply, exclusion of liability for personal injury or death is prohibited by UCTA. This would suggest there may be other provisions which, if not prohibited, are unreasonable and you should be aware of the commitments you are taking on prior to signing This pure speculation, but the fact that those clauses would not be in a standard lease precedent does make me wonder if the landlord has done a DIY job and produced a lease from the internet suitable for another jurisdiction.
The danger is not “piercing the corporate veil” (which basically removes your personal protection against problems that the company might have), but being accused of tax evasion, which the director of the company is fully responsible for. I suggest you read your tax laws very, very, very carefully or better yet, ask an accountant. An additional risk is that once the inland revenue has their eye on you, they will handle you extra carefully. Not something you want.
Yes, but ... It doesn’t protect you. Let’s imagine you put such a clause in and a person in Europe used your service notwithstanding: they’ve broken the contract but you’ve broken the law. You get the fine and they get ... nothing. Because you can’t contract outside the law you never had a valid contract with them so you have no basis to sue. Further, because you are purporting to something you can’t legally do, you are probably on the wrong side of misleading and deceptive consumer protection law: which is another fine. If you can ensure that you don’t breach local law - like by not operating over the internet - then you can choose not to deal with e.g. Europeans. If you can’t guarantee that, then you’re stuffed.
switzerland &quot;Gutgläubiger Erwerb gestohlener Dinge&quot; (buying of stolen goods in good faith) is a big topic in law. Different jurisdictions handle it differently, but most European (civil law) systems have some kind of rule that accept the ownership of a buyer in such a case. Here is a good article that compares different jurisdictions on exactly such an issue. Luxury watches are a kind of art. According to Swiss law (Art 934 ZGB), the item must be returned when discovered within 5 years of the theft. However, the rightful owner must pay for any expenses you had. Since the theft was more than 5 years ago, the watch is, in my opinion, rightfully yours. Since Blancpain is in Switzerland, they are obviously bound to Swiss law. Also, they are not the police, so they cannot seize an item. They can only safekeep it and report to the authorities. I would also contact a lawyer for help. It seems to me like a case you should win.
The registration office does not have access to your GEZ bill. They cannot deny you deregistration, but also cannot tell you whether your debts are settled. You might prefer to clarify this matter with the GEZ in writing rather than over phone, since you can more easily machine-translate an email or letter.