As of: February 27, 2024, 12:23 p.m
By: Elisa Buhrke
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The tenants in the Alte Heide are shocked: for 2022 they will have to pay additional heating costs of up to 3,000 euros.
There is initially no response from the landlord – Vonovia.
Munich - 3000 euros additional payment: With such a high heating bill, everyone's jaw would be left hanging open.
But this actually happened to several tenants in the Alte Heide housing estate in Munich (Schwabing-Freimann district).
Evi Gsteiger is one of them - and doesn't want to bear the excessive costs.
Vonovia is demanding huge additional payments for heating costs - tenants are defending themselves
In the BR program “quer” from February 22nd, Gsteiger shows her bill to the camera: she should pay an additional 3,070 euros for 2022, with an advance payment of just 984 euros.
The pensioner, who has lived in her apartment for 47 years, is stunned: her heating behavior in 2022 and 2021 was “almost identical”.
Other tenants whom the BR reporters called confirmed the statements - they also received claims of between 1,700 and 3,000 euros.
Tenant Evi Gsteiger can't believe it: she has to pay additional heating costs of 3,070 euros.
© Screenshot: BR, broadcast: across with Christoph Süß from February 22nd, 2024
Resistance is therefore forming in the Alte Heide apartment block: the residents turn on politics, and ultimately the press.
Because the landlord, Vonovia, does not respond despite multiple complaints.
At a residents' meeting in mid-February, which was attended by the deputy district chairman of the Left Party, Christian Schwarzenberger, the tenants finally found out the cause of their heating cost problem: This has the awkward title "substitute supply".
But what does that mean?
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Replacement instead of basic care: How the extreme costs come about
The so-called replacement supply occurs when a household's electricity or gas consumption cannot be assigned to a contract or provider, writes
verbraucherzentrale.de
.
This happens, among other things, if the previous provider is insolvent or can no longer supply energy.
The latter was also the case with the tenants in the Alte Heide.
They therefore slipped into the replacement supply of the Munich municipal utility.
However, according to
verbraucherzentrale.de
, this is only an emergency solution that usually only runs temporarily for three months.
Following this, the landlord could have taken care of a much cheaper contract, which even SWM itself offers: the basic service.
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Christian Schwarzenberger (Vice District Chairman, Die Linke) makes it clear to the tenants: Vonovia could also have switched to the much cheaper basic service.
© Screenshot: BR, broadcast “across with Christoph Süß” from February 22nd, 2024
“Vonovia could have concluded this tariff and we wouldn’t be sitting here.
We wouldn’t have these problems,” left-wing politician Schwarzenberger made clear at the residents’ meeting.
Vonovia takes a stand: “Check whether there are any repayments”
The BR reporter also asked the Munich tenants' association whether such high demands for additional payments were legal.
And here too the statement from an employee: Vonovia's behavior towards its tenants is “very difficult to understand”.
Only when the BR reporters themselves confronted the Bochum real estate group with the allegations did the tenants receive a reaction: “Unfortunately, we failed to activate a new tariff after the replacement contract,” writes Vonovia in an email that is included in the documentary is read out, “We are now checking whether this will result in repayments.” When asked by our editorial team on Tuesday, February 27th, a spokesman for the group said: The review process is still not completed.
It is still unclear whether tenants have to pay the high heating costs or not.
Note: The video appeared on the show on February 22, 2024
“quer” from Bayerischer Rundfunk and can be viewed at any time in the ARD media library.
Here you can find the weekly magazine, here you can find the program described in the article.
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