https://legal.excellentwiki.com/germany/contract-law/ Recent content in Contract Law on ExcellentWiki - Legal Encyclopedia Hugo en-US Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://legal.excellentwiki.com/germany/contract-law/german-contract-law/ Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://legal.excellentwiki.com/germany/contract-law/german-contract-law/ <h2 id="sources-and-structure">Sources and Structure</h2> <p>German contract law (Vertragsrecht) is codified in Book 2 of the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB) — the German Civil Code — which entered into force on 1 January 1900 and was fundamentally modernised by the 2002 reform of the law of obligations (Schuldrechtsmodernisierung). The BGB&rsquo;s structure follows the Pandectist tradition, moving from general to particular: Book 1 (General Part, §§ 1-240) contains provisions on legal persons, declarations of will, and contracts generally; Book 2 (Law of Obligations, §§ 241-853) contains the general law of obligations followed by specific contractual types (Kaufvertrag, Mietvertrag, Werkvertrag, etc.); Book 3 (Property Law, §§ 854-1296) governs the transfer of ownership. The 2002 reform transposed several EU consumer protection directives into the BGB, restructured the law of prescription (Verjährung), and recast the law of non-performance.</p>