Hello everyone! I am coming to all of you here with some doubts. I have some serious doubts about the costs inquired by my landlord for the last 3 months from last year. We moved there at 1st of October 2024 in a newer apartment building built in 2001with 3 rooms after living for 4 years in a 2 room apartment that was older, from 1970 and never had such high costs even when they got high in 2021-2022. Can you please let me know if this is reasonable or makes sense? This is all I recieved from the landlord. Thank you in advance!
by Pleasant_Diver_6120
16 comments
Seems like the bulk of the excess is from your warm water usage … is there a leaky tap or something in your apartment ?
First send them an Email and ask if there’s been a mistake.
If you only live in an apartment during the winter months without paying anything for heating etc in summer, this is quite a usual outcome.
I didn’t check the different costs per unit, but from what I gather you paid around 330-340 Nebenkosten per month for a 3 room apartment. That’s high but not super unusual. You could arrange an appointment at your local Verbraucherzentrale to have them check it for you and meanwhile pay the costs “Unter Vorbehalt”
I mean, the math checks out. How is your water heated?
How long do you shower?
OP is running a SPA in his basement
Your water heating costs in this building are insane.
Nearly 50 euros per cubic metre is *not* normal.
Is it normal for me to pay the rental of the metering devices and the maintenance as well?
Request to see their receipts and check why you are paying 50 Euros per cubicmeter of warm water. That’s an insane price. Sounds like they might have mixed in some bills that aren’t supposed to be there.
Heating is normal, hot water is not. You’re NOT using a lot of hot water.
I took a quick look at my last invoice, the calculated price for m³ hot water was 13,50 Euro AND we have much less fixed costs. We paid 660 Euro for hot water for a YEAR in total.
I think I can see the problem here. BFW did not match the “Abrechnungszeitraum” with the “Nutzungszeitraum” correctly. 9000 Euro total costs would be insane for three months and about 480 m² in total, so that’s the cost for the whole year. But they used the consumption (yours and total) for three months, I think. Call BFW directly.
The calculation is probably wrong.
They breakup the overall cost for heating over all consumption from all tenants.
For the hot water, I assume the cost is also the total cost of the year for the house.
But in that case, the overall consumption of 49.5m^3 seems wrong.
So they calculate the warm water cost from the cost for the house and the consumption for only your apartment.
I got a very high bill once too and it turned out the things who counts water and electricity was defect! Maybe check the date on those devices.
Update: Landlord sent the complete document and apparently someone lived there until end of May and then it was empty for one month and then someone used it for 2 months only. The first tenant that stayed 5 months payed a bit more than me but consumed less heated water somehow. I will attach additional info
The 2 months tenant had to pay in total like 200 euros and a bit for almost no consumption. And Then I moved in in October.
Use this online tool by the Berliner Mieterverein: https://www.co2online.de/service/energiesparchecks/betriebskostencheck/
It asks you step by step to put in your numbers.
Should the result be that you’re paying way more than you should, I’d contact the Mieterverein about possible next steps: https://www.berliner-mieterverein.de/wir-ueber-uns/beratungszentren.htm
In my experience it’s borderline pointless to try to settle these disputes yourself with your land lord. They will not take you seriously, especially as a foreigner. If they receive mail by the Mieterverein however, their pants quickly turn brown enough to rethink their shenanigans.
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