Halterhaftung

Halterhaftung is the German legal principle that certain duties and liabilities attach to the registered keeper (Halter) of a vehicle rather than to the driver in German vehicle registration. It makes the keeper answerable for the car itself. Under § 7 StVG the keeper carries strict liability for damage caused by the operation of the vehicle, which is why liability insurance is compulsory and is issued in the keeper's name. The keeper is also the addressee for the vehicle's obligations: the KFZ-Steuer assessment, the duty to keep the car roadworthy and HU-current, and the Halterhaftung for parking penalties, tolls and similar charges where no driver can be identified. Moving-traffic offences work differently — the fine and any points in Flensburg follow the identified driver, and the authority will write to the keeper first only to ask who was driving. In a keeper-service arrangement, the practical consequence is that these notices arrive at the keeper company, which then forwards them and recovers the amounts from the client under the service contract. That contractual allocation does not change the statutory position toward the authorities: to them, the Halter remains the responsible party.