Decision no. 1152/2016

In 1938, the requested property was under the sole ownership of Nelly K., who was considered Jewish as defined by the Nuremberg Laws. In September 1939 a purchase contract was concluded between the owner as vendor and two sisters as buyers. The purchase price was 17,010 Reichsmark. As a result of various charges imposed by the National Socialist Property Transaction Office the vendor only received a small part of this sum.

In 1941 Nelly K. was deported from Vienna to the Łódź Ghetto. She did not survive the Holocaust.

During the war the property was damaged by bomb-hits and fighting, which rendered it partially uninhabitable.

In 1948 Nelly K.’s three children, who had left Austria before or during the years of Nazi rule, filed for restitution of the requested property at the Restitution Commission as the heirs of Nelly K. In a partial decision dated June 1951, the Restitution Commission ruled that the “aryanizers” were, in principle, obligated to restitute the property; the decision on the settlement of the costs was reserved for the final ruling. In addition, the Restitution Commission held that the buyers had acted in good faith at the time. Nelly K.’s heirs appealed this ruling. However, before a renewed examination and a final ruling could occur, in 1951 the restitution claimants and the buyers reached a settlement before the Restitution Commission. In this settlement, during which both parties were legally represented, the parties reciprocally waived their claims to all rights arising from the partial decision and agreed on the restitution of one half of the property.

In 1961 the heirs of Nelly K. sold their half of the property to the City of Vienna for 55,000 Schilling. The other co-owner sold their half of the property in 1971, also to the City of Vienna, for 170,000 Schilling. The City of Vienna renovated the tenanted apartment building in the 1980s and was its sole owner on the cut off day pursuant to the GSF Law, 17 January 2001.

In its judicial appraisal the Arbitration Panel examined, among other things, whether the settlement had constituted an extreme injustice in the meaning of the GSF Law. The Arbitration Panel was unable to determine any discrepancy in value between the value of the property at the time of the settlement and the consideration received by the restitution claimants in the settlement. In addition, it was unable to determine that the claimants’ freedom of contract had been restricted in any way. Therefore, as there were no indications that the settlement of 1951 constituted an extreme injustice the Arbitration Panel rejected the applications.