On 21st of July 2009, a shopping center building close to Berlin completely collapsed due to structure faults in the roof  – fortunately not in opening hours.

BERNZEN SONNTAG advised the property owner, a real estate investment funds, during  the entire time until the re-building was completed.  We were authorized to represented the real estate owner towards banking institutes to avoid termination of existing loans; towards building companies in order to execute quality guarantees, towards tenants in order to defend from (massive) claims for compensation and towards public authorities for acquisition for new building permissions.

It took three years to finalize  all necessary  agreements. The building was finally been re-opened in a new, modern shape on 17th July 2012. Most of the tenants have extended their rental agreements. None  of the tenants have executed  their rights to terminate their lease agreements extraordinarily. It was possible to postpone all payments on the existing loans during the re-building period and to finance the re-building costs by additional bank-loans, without the need to invest further own capital by the land-owner himself.