Neighborhood disputes make up only a small part of the proceedings at the district courts in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, but people in the north-east go to court with such matters more often than in many other federal states. As reported by the Ministry of Justice in Schwerin, 163 neighborhood disputes were decided in court across the country last year. That was 14 more than in the previous year and almost 1.6 percent of all 10,200 civil cases settled. The national average was 0.9 percent.
City-states such as Hamburg and Berlin, in which there are likely to be fewer arguments about overhanging branches or crowing roosters simply because of the settlement structure, push the average. According to statistics, neighborhood disputes accounted for 0.1 and 0.3 percent of all civil cases there in 2021, respectively. In Bavaria and Lower Saxony it was 1 percent each, in Saxony-Anhalt 1.6 percent.
As the statistics also show, two decades ago in the Northeast about 300 neighborhood disputes ended up in court each year. However, since the total number of civil proceedings was more than twice as high at the time, the rate was between one and two percent in each case. It was only just above the national average in 2020 at 1.1 percent. Justice Minister Jacqueline Bernhardt (left) advocated solving conflicts between neighbors as early as possible with talks. “The most effective recipe for peaceful and friendly coexistence in the neighborhood remains understanding and communication. If neighbors manage to respect and help each other, then both sides quickly agree,” he said with conviction. It takes a willingness to engage in dialogue and compromise. Arbitration boards in the municipalities offer an alternative to disputes in court. Around 120 committed arbitrators are available nationwide.
According to a representative survey by the market research institute Ipsos from 2019, two-thirds of Germans believe that people in Germany have become less neighborly since the turn of the millennium. According to the survey, for which 2,000 people aged 16 to 70 were interviewed, noise is considered the greatest disruptive factor and trigger for arguments between neighbors. This is followed by recklessness, for example when parking, and unfriendliness. Overhanging trees and rampant hedges are always a cause for dispute.
Neighborhood dispute survey Information on neighborhood law
