Reader question: Which information must I, as a tenant, be able to verify when switching from self-supply to commercial heat supply?
Your German landlord has announced that in future heat will be supplied by a commercial company. Until now they have supplied the building with heat themselves and have billed the operating costs. For this change, §556c BGB contains special requirements. The statement “The company will take over the heating” does not yet explain which costs may be charged to you in future. [BGB556c]
Classify the announced procedure
The provision concerns tenants who already bear the operating costs for heating or hot water, and a switch from self-supply to commercial heat supply. The efficiency and cost requirements named there must fit the project. This is not about every new heating cost bill and not about a separate modernisation rent increase. [BGB556c]
Place the announcement alongside the contract and the latest statements. What supply existed until now? Which supply is to follow from when? Who is the announced supplier and which new prices or price-change clauses are named?
Look for a complete announcement
Under §11 WärmeLV the announcement must be received in text form at the latest three months before the change. Among other things it must contain the type of future supply, efficiency information, the cost comparison together with assumptions and calculations, the timing, and prices and price-change clauses. [WärmeLV11]
Mark specifically which information is missing. A glossy description of the new system does not, for example, replace a comprehensible comparison calculation. Ask for the documents required to check the announced cost allocation.
Compare the same amount of heat rather than coincidental annual costs
§8 WärmeLV sets the self-supply costs previously borne against the costs that would have arisen for the underlying amount of heat in the case of heat supply. The comparison should therefore not simply mix a cold old year with a mild future year. [WärmeLV8]
The determination of the previous side is, according to §9, in principle linked to the final energy consumption of the last three previously billed periods and contains further price and cost rules. §10 deals with the quantity of heat to be derived from this, the annual utilisation rate and the determination of the heat supply costs. [WärmeLV9][WärmeLV10]
For your query you therefore need the periods used, consumption values, prices and the technical calculation bases. You do not have to estimate an unknown annual utilisation rate yourself in order to object to an incomplete calculation. A technical plausibility check requires appropriate expertise.
A hypothetical comparison with an open assumption
A tenant receives two euro amounts with the statement that the change is cost-neutral. The new amount, however, is based on an unexplained quantity of heat. They ask precisely for this basis and its connection to the previous statements, instead of merely subtracting the two final figures from each other.
This then allows examination of whether the same comparison subject was used and whether the legal requirements are met. The example neither confirms an admissible price nor the economic viability of a particular heat supply model.
Consider the information available at the time of later billing
§11 paragraph 3 WärmeLV contains a special rule on the start of the objection period against billed heat supply costs if the required announcement was missing. Any old message will therefore not automatically be treated as a complete notification. [WärmeLV11]
Keep the announcement, supplements and later statement together. Have disputed further charging and deadlines examined specifically. The article promises neither a general right to refuse every technical conversion nor an immutable price for all later years. Its outcome is a comprehensible cost comparison as the basis for the specific tenancy-law examination.