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Heating costs: It's that easy to get your landlord's money back at the end of the year

2022-04-28T06:47:05.992Z


Heating costs: It's that easy to get your landlord's money back at the end of the year Created: 04/28/2022, 08:39 By: Lisa Mayerhofer As of this year, millions of tenants should receive a monthly overview of their heating costs. (Iconic image) © Christin Klose/dpa-tmn As of this year, millions of tenants should receive a monthly overview of their heating costs. However, many landlords do not c


Heating costs: It's that easy to get your landlord's money back at the end of the year

Created: 04/28/2022, 08:39

By: Lisa Mayerhofer

As of this year, millions of tenants should receive a monthly overview of their heating costs.

(Iconic image) © Christin Klose/dpa-tmn

As of this year, millions of tenants should receive a monthly overview of their heating costs.

However, many landlords do not comply with their obligation to provide information.

This can be an advantage for renters.

Munich – Energy prices have risen sharply again in recent months.

Many German households are threatened with a hefty back payment for heating costs.

The monthly overview of heating costs, which has been required by law since this year, should actually tell the tenants exactly how high this will be.

This is what the new heating cost regulation provides for.

Who is entitled to a monthly heating cost overview?

But not all tenants have been able to see their monthly consumption.

Because there are exceptions – but they should only affect a few tenants.

For example, owners of a rented apartment in a two-family house are exempt from this regulation.

In addition, only those landlords who have already sent out a consumption-based heating cost bill are obliged to provide a monthly heating cost overview.

As a rule, however, millions of tenants should be entitled to an overview.

If they do not receive this, tenants can reduce their share of the costs by three percent at the end of the year - and thus save money.

There is still one sticking point: the regulation only applies if remotely readable measuring devices are installed in the apartment.

If this is not the case, there is still a transition period until 2026. Until then, all homeowners must retrofit existing meters that cannot be read remotely.

However, many apartments should already have devices that can be read remotely: the largest service providers in this area are Techem and Ista.

According to the Tagesschau

, Ista

stated that it was already recording consumption in almost three million apartments at the end of last year with the help of remote-readable measuring devices: "This means that we can already carry out the majority of readings without entering the apartments." Overall, Ista records in around five million apartments in Germany the energy consumption.

And according to Techem, almost 80 percent of the devices in the properties managed by the company have already been converted to wireless technology, according to the

Tagesschau

.

Monthly overview of heating costs: Tenants have several options

This means that many tenants should receive the heating cost information to which they are entitled - but this is not always the case.

Volker Rastätter from the DMB Tenants' Association Munich says: "There are several options for you as a tenant if you are entitled to the monthly overview of heating costs but the landlord does not fulfill his obligation to provide information: You can either request the monthly overview of heating costs from him or you can simply take the three percent of the cost share at the end of the year.” The latter could well be worthwhile in view of the increased energy prices.

"In such a case, I would probably demand the three percent," says Rastätter.

On the other hand, anyone who requests the monthly overview of heating costs has an overview of the expenses and can save heating costs more precisely if necessary.

However, the legally required monthly overview of heating costs could also mean increased costs for tenants, explains Rastätter: “The monthly evaluation of heating costs, which is usually collected by service providers, causes costs.

How these are distributed is still a matter of debate because the law has not precisely defined it.

Some believe that tenants only have to pay the postage costs, others believe that the landlord could pass all costs on to tenants.

Then the tenants could get an additional 10 to 30 euros a year from the evaluations.”

According to Rastätter, the tenants' association has not yet received any inquiries or complaints regarding the monthly overview of heating costs.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-04-28

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