Reader question: How do I deal with a request to amend (Verbesserungsauftrag) my rent deposit application (Mietzins-Erlagsantrag) when landlord and property management have given different payment accounts?
You have deposited one month’s rent with the court because contradictory payment instructions remained unresolved. The court now requires further details. Submitting the same messages again may not answer the court’s query. What matters is for whom you wish to make the deposit and what specific obstacle prevented the ordinary payment. This article accompanies the preparation of an application supplement in Austria; it does not provide a ready-to-file pleading.
Break the request down into the individual missing particulars
Lay the court’s letter, the original application and the attachments submitted so far side by side. Mark each required supplement: person, address, amount, affected month or reason for deposit. Note any deadline set and have unclear service or deadline issues explained immediately. A private enquiry with the management does not fulfil the court’s instruction.
§ 10 Absatz 4 AußStrG provides for improvement in the first instance where procedural-preventing formal or content defects exist. Paragraph 5 governs the effect of timely improvement and a limit to extendability. [VERBESSERUNG] No confirmed deadline for your case follows from that here. Work with the actual instruction and clarify the effective mode of filing in good time.
Do not infer the deposit opponent from the IBAN
§ 3 Absatz 1 VerwEinzG requires the reason for the deposit and the subject matter and, as a rule, the name or company and address or registered office of the deposit opponent. For persons or whereabouts unknown despite reasonable enquiries the provision contains a special prerequisite. [ANTRAG]
Our editorial recommendation: assign each named party first to the role claimed for them. Who is, according to your documents, the landlord? Who only manages? Who asserts a proprietary claim to the same rent? Note for each the specific document from which the role is said to arise. Do not invent an assignment of claim merely because a management company has been receiving payments for years.
The OGH distinguished in 2 Ob 8/26d between the status of creditor and a mere paying agent. According to the facts presented at that time the management was not an additional creditor. At the same time, difficulties in clarifying which account discharges the debt may support a deposit in favour of the landlord. Two accounts therefore do not automatically mean two deposit opponents. [OGH]
Describe the obstacle rather than merely the dispute
Create a short chronology: former payment path, new instruction, contradictory message and your actual attempts to clarify. Associate original messages with date and sender. Describe what uncertainty remained thereafter. An unanswered question is not to be presented as an established fact.
§ 1425 ABGB opens the possibility of deposit where the payment obstacles described there exist; the liberating effect requires lawful conduct and notification to the creditor. [ERLAG] Placing an amount in one’s own savings account does not thereby become a court deposit. Likewise, asserting that the rent is too high does not yet explain the contradictory payment account dealt with here.
Fictional case: The supplement names the open legal question
Samira only wrote that owner and management disagreed. The court’s instruction now requires the deposit opponents and a more detailed justification. She collects the contract and the payment notices, specifies the month and amount and discloses which role each party claims according to the available documents. Information not evidenced she marks for legal advice.
Her supplement should explain why the payment remained unresolved despite the documented enquiries and in favour of which person she wishes to deposit. Whether one or several persons should properly be named she lets be examined on the facts of the case. The example does not confirm the reason for deposit or discharge of the debt.
An amended application is not yet a final decision of fulfilment
In the mentioned OGH case the earlier orders were set aside and a procedural supplement was required. The court examines in the acceptance procedure the plausibility of the asserted reason; that does not comprehensively establish its factual existence. [OGH]
Your verifiable working result is therefore a supplement related to the court’s instruction with a clearly stated amount, traceable person allocation, a concrete obstacle and organised attachments. Keep the actual version filed and the receipt of filing together. The next month’s rent, a later payment release and any arrears each require their own clarified status.