Taking private loans from your supporters is legal and normal. Doing it badly turns a housing group into an unlicensed bank. The rules that matter:
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Prospektpflicht — VermAnlG § 2 Nr. 3 (Bagatellgrenze). Exempt if, per Vermögensanlage, “nicht mehr als 20 Anteile” are offered or the total Verkaufspreis “im Zeitraum von zwölf Monaten … insgesamt 100 000 Euro nicht übersteigt” or each Anteil costs “mindestens 200 000 Euro je Anleger”. In practice: a project counts each interest-rate tier as its own Vermögensanlage and keeps within 20 lenders or €100,000 per tier per 12 months.
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KWG § 1 Abs. 1 S. 2 Nr. 1 — Einlagengeschäft: “die Annahme fremder Gelder als Einlagen oder anderer unbedingt rückzahlbarer Gelder des Publikums” is a licensed banking business. Taking repayable money from the public without a licence is a criminal offence (§ 54 KWG). The qualifizierter Rangrücktritt is what removes the unbedingt: repayment must be barred where it would trigger the borrower’s insolvency, and the lender ranks behind all other creditors. Without that clause, correctly drafted, the whole model collapses.
Related
- syndikat-direktkredit — the practice this law shapes
- crowdinvesting-ecsp — the regulated platform route above the Bagatellgrenze
- syndikat-haus-gmbh, gmbh-ggmbh-project — the usual Emittent forms
- genossenschaft-shares — the co-op alternative, exempt on different grounds
- de-support-network — where to get this checked
Detail
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VermAnlG § 2a (Schwarmfinanzierung) lifts the ceiling to €6 m per Emittent per 12 months, but only if the offer runs “ausschließlich im Wege der Anlageberatung oder Anlagevermittlung über eine Internet-Dienstleistungsplattform”, with per-investor caps of €1,000, €10,000 (investor with ≥€100,000 free assets) or twice monthly net income up to €25,000. That is a platform route, not a kitchen-table route — see crowdinvesting-ecsp.
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GewO § 34f: brokering or advising on Vermögensanlagen commercially needs a Finanzanlagenvermittler licence (Nr. 3 covers “Vermögensanlagen im Sinne des § 1 Absatz 2 des Vermögensanlagengesetzes”). A project raising money for itself is the Emittent, not a Vermittler — but a person who places other projects’ Direktkredite for a fee is.
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EU: Regulation 2020/1503 (ECSP) governs platform-intermediated loans and securities up to €5 m per project owner per 12 months; offers to “project owners that are consumers” are out of scope.
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The Syndikat standard: written Nachrangdarlehen contracts stating amount, interest, Kündigungsfrist and the Rangrücktritt; from €1,000, notice from 6 months; the Syndikat GmbH itself stays under “nicht mehr als 100.000 EUR” per 12 months to avoid a Prospekt. Its published rate tiers for loans to the GmbH were “fünf verschiedene Zinssätze im Bereich bis max. 1,1 % p.a.” (Stand 31.05.2018) — historic and low; individual house projects set their own, commonly 0–3 %.
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Open question (not a fact): whether a given project’s tier-splitting survives a BaFin challenge is a legal judgement, not a published rule. Groups above a few hundred thousand euros should take advice — see de-support-network.