Decision no. 377/2007

The applied for real estate was owned by Isabella T., of Jewish descent, when the National Socialists took over Austria. Before 1938, Isabella T. took up numerous loans and in consequence encumbered her property, a multi-storey apartment house, with mortgages. Isabella T. waived the rental income to one of her creditors, a bank, in order to guarantee an extensive maintenance-work loan on the house. Already in 1938, the total sum of the claims by far surpassed the value of the real estate. In order to depose their claims several pawnees had been pressing legal charges since 1933. Isabella T. on the other hand took legal measures against the creditors, disputed the claims, and tried to delay bidding procedures which had been initiated. After her legal incapacitation in 1936, Isabella T.’s son Edmund T. was appointed curator for his mother. He represented his mother before courts and administrative authorities.

After Austria’s Anschluss in 1938, two civil actions brought against her pawnees by Isabella T. due to claims they had filed were still pending. Isabella T. had made agreements with two other creditors in which she accepted their claims. In return the creditors waived the assertion of their claims until the conclusion of the civil actions. Finally, Dr. Josef M., who was not a Jew, acquired three liens encumbering the real estate and – concerning one of these claims – initiated a bidding procedure which was approved in 1940. The real estate was auctioned in 1941 and acquired by Dr. Josef M.

In 1949, the heirs to Isabella T. filed an application for restitution of the real estate. This application was rejected by the Restitution Commission in 1950. The reason for the rejection was that the real estate would have been object of an auction also without a National Socialist takeover.

In its decision the Arbitration Panel had to deal with the question whether Isabella T. was forced to sell the real estate as a consequence of her persecution for being a Jew. The Arbitration Panel found that beyond any doubt the sale of the real estate had been sped up by the National Socialist regime. However, according to the Arbitration Panel in the objective case due to the owner’s financial situation an auctioning of the real estate would also have been a consequence without the influence of the National Socialist regime. Since the undisputable persecution of Isabella T. did not represent a decisive factor in the sale of her real estate, the Arbitration Panel rejected the application for restitution.