krakp

How much is the balcony "your"?

thanks for the feedback @murphaph! Cheers

@murphaph were you able to get it approved in the meantime? Did it really need to be entered into the Grundbuch? Thanks! krakp 

Mieterverein is your friend. But generally you do have right to see the bills that lead to the Abrechnung...

If you keep it inside a private property ("in a garage") - I would not expect any issues. AFAIK on your private property the car does not even need the plates / insurance. If you should park it in a public place it might a different story, but I would rather expect it to be a problem for the PT police (would it be?) than for Germany. Germany does not really care would you do in Portugal, I guess...

Technically, if you get money back it means that you have been paying too much every month (aka giving a free loan to the Finanzamt for a year or more...) and that they give it back to you only when you file the return.   So there is nothing good about it... if you have friends saying that they got 3K€ back it means they were getting 250€ too little of their monthly salary. In a perfect world you would ask the Finanzamt for a "Freibetrag" which would mean that you get more monthly but get nothing back at the end of the year. Some folks push it even in the other direction, by paying too little monthly and paying it back only at the tax return (this way they get a free loan from the Finanzamt), but of course long term the Finanzamt is going to complain about it and make sure that you pay enough monthly.... So again, as much as it may feel good to get a high tax return, it is actually not such a great idea... :-)