In a German building divided into owner-occupied apartments, a manager looks after the shared property: roof, facade, stairwell. A tenant who rents one of these apartments has a contract only with its owner. That holds even when the defect is in the shared property. Professor Florian Jacoby, in a paper published by the German Tenants’ Association, states: Der Mieter kann nur seinen Vermieter in Anspruch nehmen. The tenant can make claims only against his landlord.