In its ruling of 19 March 2021 (Matter V ZR 158/19), the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) decided that the “listed monument status” of the object of purchase can constitute a material defect within the meaning of Section 434 (1) sentence 2 no. 2 of the German Civil Code (BGB). According to the BGH, the buyer of a property may generally assume that the object of purchase is not under monument protection, since monument protection is the exception to the rule and the monument status of a building is accompanied by obligations and restrictions. Therefore, the seller has a duty of disclosure regarding the “listed monument status”. In this specific case, however, the BGH left open whether inclusion in the list of recognized monuments or only the protection itself constitutes a material defect, since in the present case inclusion in the list of recognized monuments was already a circumstance subject to disclosure.