Buying property in Vienna: a comprehensive checklist
A property purchase should rest on documents that have been checked and on a total budget you can actually afford. This general checklist helps you put the key questions in order before you make a binding decision. For a flat in condominium ownership (Eigentumswohnung), the documents and obligations of the shared building also have to be taken into account.
Settle budget and financing up front
Add up the purchase price, the incidental costs, any work that needs doing and a reserve. Match the financing to the specific property. A non-binding illustrative calculation is not yet a binding commitment.
View the property and the location more than once
Check how the place works day to day, the surroundings, the condition and any known changes. Note your questions in writing, and bring in an independent expert wherever there is significant technical uncertainty.
Ask for proof of rights, floor areas and use
Cross-check the property brochure (Exposé), the plans and whatever legal documents are available. Have it clarified whether the ancillary areas and uses being offered genuinely form part of what you are buying. A verbal statement on its own does not amount to complete documentation.
Check the running costs and the work coming next
Ask for any existing statements of account and for information on measures that are already known about. Do not base your figures solely on the payments as they stand today if larger works are foreseeable.
Review your declarations and the contract before you are bound
Have the conditions, the dates and the legal consequences of your declarations explained to you. Agree any reservations you want, and the way the money will be handled, in good time. Plan the handover on the basis of the contract, not on unchecked expectations.
A specific question about your property?