Is my landlord allowed to raise my 2025 rent / Nebenkosten retroactively? What can I do if he isn’t? The 2024 payment of difference and 2026 rent increase feels normal, but the 2025 charge is a shock.

by firzein

10 comments

  1. Just visitted the wiki, it also doesn’t indicate retroactive increase:

    > If you used more than the estimated amount, the landlord will send you a bill (and likely increase the amount you will be paying next year)

  2. He cannot change your rent, but that is “Nettokaltmiete” (which is unchanged).

    However, you have to cover Cost for “Nebenkosten” (utilities) for the past year.

  3. It’s just an offer to “prepay” an increased amount for 2025 so you’re not hit with as high of a payment whenever the costs for 2025 get issued to you. You’re not obligated to pay this, and it probably makes more sense to just wait and see what the 2025 results actually are. 

  4. The Nebenkosten that you pay each month is just an estimate, the real cost will be known after the year.

    The monthly payment for the next year is usually the cost of the current year divided by 12 – this will obviously be wrong, too.

  5. The paragraph starts with “I also offer you to …”, which sounds already like a giveaway that the landlord is not even trying to make it sound like you have to pay that 12×45€ now.

    Basically you can wait until the 2025 Nebenkostenabrechnung and pay the actual amount you owe then. The landlord tries to make you pay it upfront now, and the reimburse you in the case that the actual bill will be lower, which is likely beneficial for him since he gets the money earlier and has it already when he has to pay the bills to the utility companies.

  6. You don’t have to pay the difference for 2025 now. You have to pay the real difference once your landlord sends over the 2025 final bill.
    He writes “Ich biete Ihnen an …” which means i offer you to pay. Basically he knows that asking for higher prepayments retroactively is illegal, so he makes it an offer, in the hope you don’t read that part, and just read the bold part, which tells you to pay that amount until the 17.01.

    You could also refute the price increase for 2026. You only had a missing amount of 360€ and he mainly increased your electricity prepayment, while electricity gets cheaper next year. There is no reason to request 45€ more each month when it will be less than 30€.

  7. From what I see they only provided the Nebenkostenabrechnung for 2024 for 359,36 which they have to inform you about within 12 months. That’s what you need to pay. 

    Based on that they adjusted the prepayment in particular for electricity (Vorauszahlung) for 2026. The rent (nettokaltmiete) stays the same.

    They worded it that he is offering you to pay the forecasted difference for 2025 already now. He wrote “Ich biete Ihnen an”. I’m guessing in the hopes you’ll pay now already since he probably has to wait another 12 months to get the details on 2025.

    I’d say just pay the 359,36 for 2024. Keep in mind you’ll likely have to back pay once they provide the Nebenkostenabrechnung for 2025.

  8. Just write to him that you will settle the 2025 Nebenkosten with the Nebenkostenabrechnung for that year.

  9. There is no raise. German rent is your basic rent, Kaltmiete, plus extra costs like energy, insurance, tax, etc. .(Nebenkosten). Those Nebenkosten are calculated using a system that is pretty rigid by law. It can take quite a while for the landlord to get all 2024 bills to calculate your part of final Nebenkosten. That’s why you prepay a monthly part on the *estimated* cost. Some time in 2025 you get your Nebenkostenabrechnung, your final bill for extras in 2024. You are then billed for the difference between your down payments and the actual cost.

    In 2025, you made the same down payments as in 2024. But you actual extras were slightly more. Now two thing happen:

    1: for 2026, your down payment is raised to reflect the extra cost you will likely accumulate for 2026. This is absolutely correct and to your advantage. Extra cost is nothing that the landlord earns. It’s a rigid system. Yes, you can dispute extras, but that rarely leads to anything.

    2. Since your landlord saw that your down payments for 2024 were too low, he can assume that your extras for 2025 will also be to low. So in order for you to not be unable to pay the delta in late 2026 (for 2025 extras), he offers that you can already pay ahead some of the bill that you will get some time in 2026 (Nebenkostenabrechnung).

    What I can see is perfectly fair and correct. They did *not* raise your rent. Your energy cost did go up, and will go up further, but that is not your landlords fault. He just has the duty to bill you and collect, because he prepaid the extras for you.

  10. at first he summed up his costs in 2024 and what you paid in advance and there is 359,36 missing.

    As 2025 is over, he mostly knows what his costs were. He has not gotten the bills for electrity and water yet, but he can make a rough estimation about his costs relying on the bills for 2024. So he guesses that he will need 45€ more from you. You are invited to give him that money right now already. That makes sense from the perspective of the landlord, because he had the costs already. But that makes no sense for you. You have to pay that money anyway (with the nebenkostenabrechnung next year). A compromise could be that you pay monthly the 865€ for 2026 rent and shares + 45€ shares for nebenkostenabrechnung 2025.

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