Fitted kitchen goes over to owner ...

The case:
The tenant has a fitted kitchen built into the apartment. The lease will end shortly. The tenant claims that the kitchen has become the property of the owner, because it was created and installed by a cabinet maker, § 94 BGB.

The assessment by lawyers:
It is true that essential components of a thing can not have special rights (§ 93 BGB). This means that essential parts of the dwelling (which can not be separated from one another without destroying one or the other or changing its nature) are the property of the dwelling owner. In fact, if a fitted kitchen is an integral part, it would always be owned by the homeowner.

This is not the case. The apartment owner has not become the owner of the fitted kitchen. The kitchen is only a "dummy" (§ 95 BGB), because the kitchen was installed only for a temporary purpose as a furniture of the kitchen space.

Irrespective of this, there is usually a rental obligation that the renter returns the dwelling free from the installations he has made. The tenant should therefore be obliged to take along the kitchen (unless you have agreed otherwise).