Rising heating and electricity costs: The explosion comes with a delay

Created: 02/17/2022, 14:59

By: Tobias Gmach

Many owners and tenants are afraid of reading the electricity meter this year.

© dpa

The long-term contracts between property management companies and cooperatives with energy suppliers are saving many in the district from horrendous additional payments this year.

But heating and electricity bills are still going up, so the concern is palpable.

District – 80 percent of Germans are worried about the next heating bill.

This was the result of a recent survey by the market research institute Innofact on behalf of the comparison portal Verivox.

The high energy prices caused by CO2 pricing, fuel shortages, the Ukraine conflict and Germany's dependence on Russia, the main gas supplier, also affect the people in the district.

Some earlier, some later.

Andreas Oberhofer, managing director of the Wohnen association, which manages around 2500 apartments in the district, can sing a song about it.

Many tenants have already contacted the association about the pending utility bills.

"Some want to keep their advance payments so that there aren't too many additional payments," says Oberhofer.

So the residents know what to expect.

The tenants of the Wohnen association are currently getting off relatively lightly – if you compare them with the customers of the BIG property management company in Herrsching.

Their owners' associations and tenants can expect to triple their numbers, reports Managing Director Martin Bertram.

The main supplier of gas and electricity lost its license last year, Bertram suspects due to insolvency.

The result: the framework contract with the property management company, which was supposed to secure prices until the end of 2022, was no longer valid.

A short-term solution was needed and, according to Bertram, was found.

The prices that BIG negotiated are still moderate in relation to what you pay elsewhere on the market, says the managing director.

They are still a house number.

Property management: Energy portfolio would cost four times as much today

The Starnberger See housing cooperative, which manages 570 apartments, has been delayed in realizing the price increases.

"We will not be affected until 2024," says board member Patrick Manoppo.

The situation at “Estate5”, a real estate company from Starnberg, is similarly stable.

But boss Angela Hartmann says: "If I were to buy our current portfolio today, I would be four times as much." And she's only talking about the pure natural gas price on the energy exchange - and not about the fees that the state adds on top of it: taxes, grid fees , charges.

“Estate5” always concludes its contracts for two or three years.

Hartmann could now be attested to have good timing, but she emphasizes: "We do not expect prices to fall back to the old level."

Since the beginning of the year, the electricity price has only been slightly higher at the Fünfseenland Energy Cooperative (EGF), which cooperates with the Landsberger Stadtwerke.

Customers now pay around one cent per kilowatt hour more for green electricity from hydropower.

The annual basic price has remained the same, says Doris Kömmling from the EGF when asked.

The "Fünfseenland-Gas" for heating, a cooperation offer with the Regionalwerk Würmtal, no longer exists.

According to Kömmling, the conditions were too unattractive.

The regional work is currently also increasing the tariffs.

Managing Director Marten Jürgens: "We too have to adapt to the national energy markets." We continue to take on new customers.

The fact that consumers cannot afford hefty additional payments will probably happen more often in the future.

Verband-Wohnen Managing Director Oberhofer says about hardship cases: "It is important to get in touch in good time, then we can help and arrange installment payments, for example."