GER: ‘Garage Risk’ – What Vehicle Repair Costs Are Covered?

Mar 1, 2024 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte

The victim of a road traffic accident has the right to take their damaged vehicle to a garage for repair and then to claim compensation from the party responsible for the accident. According to the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, hereinafter BGH), this also includes items that have been invoiced but were not actually incurred.

In its five most recent decisions, the BGH’s Sixth Civil Senate in charge of motor vehicle accidents considered the question of who bears the ‘garage risk’ when the party responsible for the accident objects to the garage’s repair invoice.

According to previous case law, the ‘garage risk’ is in principle borne by the party causing the damage. The injured party in a road traffic accident is therefore entitled to take the damaged vehicle to a garage for repair and then to claim the costs incurred from the party responsible for the accident. This also applies if the costs are disproportionate and therefore unnecessary due to inappropriate or inefficient work on the part of the garage.

The BGH has now ruled that the ‘garage risk’ does not only apply to invoice items that are inflated through no fault of the claimant, for example as a result of improper or uneconomical use of materials or labour. Rather, in the relationship between the claimant and the injured party, invoice items that relate to individual repair measures that are not recognisable to the claimant and were not actually carried out may also be eligible for compensation. Again, this means that the damage is assessed in an external sphere that the injured party cannot control.

The claimant can trust that a specialist garage will not choose an uneconomical way of repairing the damage and is therefore not obliged to obtain an expert opinion first, according to the BGH.

BGH VI ZR 38/22 (16 January 2024)