Breakdown of Nebenkosten and their justification

I recently moved out of an apartment, my girlfriend had taken care of the rental agreement. After we moved out we received a letter from the landlord which was the wohngeldabrechnung for the year. I hadn't looked at them before, but this one I did. Apparently included in our nebenkosten was Grundsteuer, Versicherungen, Kabelfernsehgebuhr and Garteninstandsetzung.

Is it my understanding that we were paying the landlord's taxes and insurance on the property. We had our own insurance for renters, not to mention we also had a subscription with our local cabel provider for television, telephone and broadband.

Does this sound legit?

Yes it does - the landlord is able to pass on a number of costs (umlagefähig). The cable TV will no doubt be for ongoing maintenance & provision costs of the installation in the building, the Grundsteuer is levelled at the occupants of a household, Garteninstandsetzung will be the cost of someone to take care of the communal gardens and insurance will no doubt be against damage to the building, not the same as your contents or liability insurance.

Thanks Guy,

I still think it's ridiculous that we paid our landlord for cable TV, even though it was installed years ago and we have our own subscription.

I guess that's why we just built our own place, so we don't have to deal with landlords anymore.

The reason that it seems to be "extra" is that you were probably always charged this as part of your rent and not as an itemized bill of "extras". This is a German thing. Everything there is normal except maybe the cable bill. Of course, it is too late to not have cable as that was probably part of the advert to entice renters and it is probably in your rental agreement.

With most of the cable providers, there is a monthly charge for basic service that is separate from the package deals/premium channels.

we just go a big fat envelope containing all our nebenkosten for 2006-2007
and was quite suprised to se the supposed cost for everything
but why on earth do i hay to pay 450€ for heating that was never ever turned on
are these feckers taking the piss or what ?

Fuel consumption is metred, either in your living space or for communcal heating by the whole block and then divided eit by units or square metres.
€450 a year for a single apartment is low, it its your share of communal heating it seems high unless you live in a really small block.

If you think it is wrog, ask to see the paperwork.

Sir Realist you normally have little things on your radiators.These are read and your consumption is then worked out.Some are digital and some have a fluid in them.Digital ones are fantastic.If however you have a fluid one and the sun shines on it the fluid evaporates causing higher charges because it looks like you have had the heating turned on

@sr: Look at it like this: One of the benefits of your appartement is the possibility to turn on the heating if it gets cold. Even if you didnt, you have to pay your share of the fixed costs for that benefit. If those seem to high, you should be able to see from your bill, what those costs are. If the heating installation is old, there might be high maintenance costs.

Another reason could be the breakdown into fixed and variable costs. As far as I know, it could be anything between 40:60 and 20:80. If 40% of the overall costs are considered fixed costs, it is especially unfair to people who didnt use the heating. With rising energy prices, many landlords are willing to change to 20:80 to encourage appropriate behaviour. Of course this can only be done, when the majority of the appartement owners agree.

Read your contract. Probably it is not allowed to have the heating off the whole time.

The proportion of the costs for heating which can be related to actual consumption are regulated by law to between 50% - 70%. In older buildings, where the heating system is not so efficient or where the usage is measured by the older type of evaporation meters, it is usual to set the proportion at 50%. In more modern housing, particularly where the heating is measured using modern kwh meters, then the proportion of the bill related to consumption is usually 70%.

The fact that a proportion of the costs is not consumption related reflects the fact that some costs are not consumption related.

They recently changed that to ... - 80%. I know that because at our house we (the owners) are currently fighting about how to break it down. Obviously families with children, where one of the parents stays at home (and therefor needs to keep the appartement warm the whole day), would prefer a different percentage than singles, who spend most of their daytime at work anyway.

I must have missed that. I think it makes sense though, the 70% limit was a bit unrealistic in modern buildings. Having said that, if they keep raising the insulation standards the way they have over the last ten years, or so, once you get near to passive house standards, the non-consumption related costs are likely to start exceeding the consumption related ones!


When I moved into my flat in Stuttgart in February (Zweitwohnung during the week, whihle working on a two-year project here) I was surprised to discover that although the flat had been empty (and the heating turned off for a month) the temperature was 22 °C! The flat's on the 8th floor of a 12 storey block and I haven't needed to turn the heating on yet!