psychonaut

Well, what's the worst that is likely to happen if I simply withhold payment for the month in dispute?  Will they bother sending a Mahnbescheid for what, to the likes of rich megacorporations and @Speakeasy24, is such a paltry amount?  Will they bother following through with a Vollstreckungsbescheid if I formally dispute the Mahnbescheid?  Can a German Vollstreckungsbescheid even be enforced in Austria?

 

  If you consider this amount of money to be so inconsequential, I'll gladly send you my bank details so that you can wire me the sum.

The monthly fee is about €25.  Worth spending a few minutes arguing by phone or e-mail, but probably not using the legal system.

  Well, crap.  Do the rulings apply only to Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia, as the article suggests?  I was resident in Hesse so maybe the issue hasn't been adjudicated there yet (in which case it might be worth pressing the matter with Unitymedia).

  Of course, you are right—it's only the "heavy" stuff (dental prosthetics, etc.) that I was referring to.

I recently moved away from Germany and so terminated my contract with my Internet provider, Unitymedia.  I sent my Kündigung in mid-February, about a month before I moved in mid-March, and sent a copy of my new Anmeldungsbescheinigung as soon as I received it, in mid-March.  According to my reading of §46 ¶8 of the Telekommunikationsgesetz, when you move out of a telecommunication provider's service area, you are entitled to terminate your contract with three months' notice from the end of a calendar month:     Basically they are saying that my right to a three-month notice period begins only from the date of the move.  Even if I had notified them a full three months in advance of the move, they would expect me to pay my Internet bill for a further three months after the move.   I don't see where in the TKG that they are getting this additional condition.  Am I overlooking something?  Has this question been previously adjudicated?  Or are they just making up legal rules out of whole cloth?  Should I press this matter with them?

  Well, @Starshollow said he was going to investigate but hasn't yet come back to this thread.  Perhaps this ping will serve as a reminder.   In the meantime, I might consult with some local insurance brokers to see if they're aware of any such plans.  

  Austria, but after that, who knows?  Possibly back to Germany, or to France, or maybe elsewhere.  That's why we'd prefer to have a policy that will cover us regardless where in the EU we reside.  The policies we've seen are tied to residence in a certain country, and take several years for the level of coverage to rise to the maximum level.

Today, some seven weeks after we first wrote, we got an answer from Hallesche in the form of a phone call.  (And just in time—I was just about to write to the Vorstand today!)  They informed us that we could keep the dental insurance abroad only if we stayed on with a German Krankenkasse, which I'm afraid in our case is not possible, so they will be cancelling our contracts on the date we leave Germany.   @Starshollow, you mentioned that there are indeed international health insurances with dental coverage.  How would one go about finding such a plan?  Googling for "Zahnzusatzversicherung" in combination with various keywords like "weltweit" or "Ausland" seems to turn up only German plans that cover dental care during temporary trips/stays outside of Germany.  I need a plan that covers my dental treatment (but nothing else) while I am permanently living anywhere in the EU (or maybe even anywhere in the world).

Does anyone here have any recent experience with Hallesche—in particular, any experience getting hold of customer service?   A year or two ago we signed up online for their dental insurance (Zahnzusatzversicherung) on the strength of recommendations here and on other websites.  Apart from sending in reimbursement forms for teeth cleaning, we've never had any reason to contact them until now.  Basically, we're moving abroad and so need to discuss the possibility of keeping our policies, which we would generally prefer to do so that we can keep the coverage level we've accumulated.  (According to the fine print it is possible to keep the policies after moving abroad, but only at a different tariff, so we need to know what this tariff is, and to cancel the policies in case it is too high.)   The problem is that Hallesche aren't responding to our queries.  They never answer the phone and haven't responded to two queries using their online contact form we've sent in the past month.  I guess the next step is a registered letter.   I did some Googling and turned up a review site where people are posting similar complaints.  Almost all of the recent reviews say that, while the company had been very good in the past, recently they have become almost completely uncommunicative, even to letters sent Einschreiben/Rückschein.  Even requests for reimbursement or certificates of coverage are taking months to process.   Does anyone here know what's up with Hallesche, or have any recent success in getting them to respond to queries?

I currently live in Darmstadt but will be moving to Vienna on 14 March.  I'm an EU citizen (of neither Germany nor Austria) and want to vote in the upcoming EU Parliament elections.   The problem is that in Vienna, the deadline for voter registration is 12 March, so I won't be able to register to vote as an Austrian resident.  Even though I won't be living in Germany on the date of the election, would I still be able to vote as a German resident, perhaps with an advance or postal ballot?  I tried looking online and while I found some information on postal ballots (Briefwahl), I didn't find out whether it would be possible to obtain and cast one after leaving the country, nor whether there was any way of voting early (i.e., before my 14 March moving date).   (In case anyone asks, voting in my country of citizenship is not an option as I've never been registered there and don't want to travel all the way there just to cast a ballot.)