You have moved out of an Austrian rented flat or have just moved in. Later a yearly bill for a period that partly predates your tenancy appears. The intuitive answer “Each person pays only for their months of residence” can, depending on the cost type and legal framework, be too simplistic. Therefore first check exactly what is being billed and which allocation rule actually applies.
An invoice can contain several legal routes
Our editorial recommendation: Separate building operating costs, jointly billed supply of heating or hot water, and your own supply contract. A common envelope does not make them a single cost type. Note for each the billing period, named recipient, balance and asserted due date.
Clarify the applicable framework for the specific flat. The following MRG explanation concerns the statutory annual flat-rate settlement under § 21 Absatz 3. It does not automatically apply to every Austrian tenancy agreement. The HeizKG in turn has its own scope, which § 3 describes, among other things, by reference to usage units, common supply and consumption determination. [MRG] [GELTUNG]
Building operating costs: Do not divide the annual flat rate yourself into months of residence
§ 21 Absatz 3 MRG regulates annual flat-rate amounts, annual settlement and the adjustment at the next but one interest date. Case law treats the flat-rate instalments as independent components of the rent; the later shortfall or surplus is allocated to the tenant party entitled or obliged on the relevant cut-off date. [MRG] [OGH]
Therefore it is not decisive merely who actually lived in the flat in the billed previous year. Have the relevant due date and the tenancy status then existing determined on the basis of the actual bill presented. The day you happen to open the letter is not itself a legal allocation rule.
Do not invent a pro rata claim against the former tenant just because a monthly split seems fairer to you. If there is a separate agreement between you, it must also be examined according to its concrete contents. It does not automatically replace the statutory relationship to the landlord.
Heating costs: Here the period of use is expressly relevant
Where the HeizKG applies, § 23 contains a different route for the change of customer. Shortfalls and surpluses are allocated to the respective period of use. An interim determination can, at the departing or incoming person’s request, be carried out at their expense; the law describes, in addition to reading meters, suitable projection methods and the treatment of consumption-independent shares. [WECHSEL]
Without an interim determination, the monthly allocation laid down there applies under the statutory conditions. This is not a freely chosen estimate based on your present memory of cold weeks. Record the actual change and meter-reading date and ask which permissible calculation was used.
§ 23 Absatz 6 also requires the departing person to notify their new address. Otherwise information sent to the previous property address may suffice for proper billing. [WECHSEL] A mail-forwarding plan is therefore part of the handling and not only relevant when a reminder appears.
A hypothetical move with two different outcomes
In the invented case Selma moves out in the spring. Later the new tenant receives a building operating costs statement, while Selma receives a supply cost statement. The households initially assume an error because both documents relate to the same building.
However, they first assign the cost types and legal bases. For the statutory annual flat-rate settlement the relevant balance cut-off date is examined; where the HeizKG applies the period of use and change determination are traced. The different recipient can therefore have a different legal starting point. Whether both specific amounts are correct is not thereby confirmed.
Do not simply transfer outside the framework shown
A general contractual clause “The current tenant pays everything” is not a reliable universal solution. In case 6 Ob 67/25h the OGH criticised a specific balance clause because of unclear charges, periods and due dates. [TRANSPARENZ] The statutory annual flat-rate rule must therefore not be replaced by an arbitrary unclear contractual formulation.
In the event of a disputed claim, ask specifically for cost type, legal basis, period and allocation evidence. Secure both tenancy periods and any available meter-reading data. This allows the specific bill to be examined without rejecting all additional charges unexamined or mixing the different allocation rules with one another.