Austria

Federal Act concerning the protection of monuments for their historical, artistic or other cultural significance – Sale and burden of monuments – Unity of collections § 6.

(1) The voluntary sale of monuments, which are only by legal presumption under monument protection (§ 2 exp. 1), requires the approval of the Federal Monuments Office. If such monuments are voluntarily sold without the approval of the Federal Monuments Office, so that at least half of them are owned by persons not mentioned in § 2 (1) sentence 1, they are still subject to the provisions of § 2 (1) and the resulting provisions legal consequences. Insofar as the voluntary sale is effected by law, this continuance ends five years after the transfer of ownership.

(2) The authorization to sell pursuant to para. 1 may only be granted if the acquirer is named at the same time. Before deciding whether to grant or refuse authorization to sell to a person not mentioned in § 2, it must be ascertained in accordance with § 2 (2) whether a public interest in preserving the monument actually exists. In the case of a finding of non-existence, the procedure for the question of granting the sale must be deemed to be devoid of purpose.

(3) The license pursuant to paragraph 1 shall expire if it is not exercised within five years.

(4) The sale of monuments, the preservation of which by ordinance pursuant to Section 2a or by decision pursuant to Section 3 (1) or in accordance with any other procedure referred to in Section 2 (3) has been found to be in the public interest or in respect of which a sub-protection proceeding has been initiated has become (§ 16 para. 2), the seller (or other authorized persons, such as the commission agent) under naming the acquirer within two weeks to the Federal Monuments Office. The determination of the public interest is not affected by the change of ownership. Without prejudice to the provisions of § 2a (7) and § 3 (3), the seller (or other person entitled to dispose of the goods) is obliged to inform the purchaser of such a monument,

(5) The voluntary sale or encumbrance of individual objects from a collection requires the written approval of the Federal Monuments Office if the Federal Monuments Office has listed this collection as a unit (§ 1 para. 4 and 5) under monument protection. Voluntary sale or encumbrance without such authorization is prohibited and void under Section 879 of the General Civil Code. An execution on individual objects of such a collection is to be stopped at the request of the Federal Monuments Office. If the execution is carried out on all objects of such a collection, they can only be used together if the Federal Monuments Office informs the court in time that it is a uniform collection in the sense cited above. The fact, The fact that objects of a collection declared to be a unit became the property (co-ownership) of several persons in the meantime (for example through inheritance) does not change the legal continuity of this collection as a unit. In this case, the Federal Monuments Office can ex officio abolish the unity of the collection or remand units by decision.