Fine threatened: glitch when counting apartments

Created: 08/08/2022, 17:47

The State Statistical Office in Bad Ems.

© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa/archive image

A good 1.3 million property owners in the country have to provide statistical information.

Some of them were immediately threatened with a fine.

Bad Ems - When buildings and apartments in Rhineland-Palatinate were first counted since 2011, there were breakdowns in the delivery of letters - combined with the threat of fines.

“Around 88 percent of the 1.3 million homeowners who wrote to the State Statistical Office of Rhineland-Palatinate about the census of buildings and apartments as part of the 2022 census have reported so far.

The remaining twelve percent will receive a warning letter in these days, which will cause displeasure among some of those affected," said the President of the authority in Bad Ems, Marcel Hürter, on Monday.

According to his spokesman, a six-digit number of citizens receive these warning letters with a threat of a fine of 300 euros each.

President Hürter explained: "There are cases in which the receipt of the report and the sending of the warning letter overlapped." Obviously, it also happened that neither the first letter nor the reminder letter, but only the warning with the threat of Fine property owners would have reached.

According to Hürter, this should be clarified with the delivery companies.

The telephone hotline on the subject was “heavily loaded”.

The head of the authority emphasized: "In the further course of the procedure, we will ensure that no one is unjustly imposed a penalty payment." The sending of the reminder letters in the middle of the summer school holidays and the response period of only 14 days are unavoidable given the tight time frame of the 2022 census.

The first letter and reminder were actually sent well before the start of the vacation.

Respondents who have not yet reported their data are asked to fill out the questionnaire online using the access data in the reminder letter.

This avoids a fine.

According to the State Statistical Office, the survey provides “important small-scale planning bases for housing construction, but also for the energy transition”.

The state parliament opposition of the free voters announced a small request to the state government - among other things about additional costs.

There is concern "that the 2022 census, which is already under criticism, will lose its reputation due to the delivery breakdowns and thus also damage trust in the public administration".

In the case of recipients of unjustified reminders, the threat of fines must be unbureaucratically withdrawn: "Otherwise there is a risk of a wave of lawsuits in the administrative courts," warned the Free Voters.

dpa