Reader question: How do I distinguish the construction final settlement (Herstellungs-Endabrechnung) for my WGG rental flat from an ordinary annual statement?
Years after you first moved into your Austrian WGG rental flat the housing association sends a “final settlement”. You initially take it for the ordinary annual statement. Before you assess back payments, receipts and deadlines, however, it must be clear whether the entire construction costs of the building project are being settled.
Examine the subject in the complete document
Look for the designated building project, the scope of the settlement and the linkage to your contract. Are the entire construction costs really meant or only ongoing operating costs? A final settlement on moving out is again a different procedure.
§18 paragraph 3 WGG obliges the housing association to produce a final settlement of the entire construction costs. The provision generally names five years after first occupation and contains a special annual renewal rule for subsidised building projects and where a subsidy-related settlement has not yet been approved accordingly. [WGG18] Mere building age therefore does not allow a definitive statement about lateness.
Record the time data with their receipts
Note first occupation, verifiable lodging of the specific final settlement and available information on the subsidy settlement. Have explained to you which version you have and which changes were made later. Missing data should be recorded as open.
The provision foresees inspection of receipts within three years after lodging. Objections to the amount of the underlying entire construction costs must be asserted in court or with the competent municipality within three calendar years of lodging pursuant to the statutory reference. [WGG18] This wording is not independently converted into an unchecked number of days.
Do not equate a request for receipts with judicial assertion
Prepare the substantive review on the basis of concretely named cost items. Copies may be requested at your own expense of receipts that have been inspected on request. [WGG18] Note which invoice belongs to which settlement line and which allocation is not comprehensible.
If an actual objection remains, have competence, deadline and the required step clarified at an early stage. An e-mail requesting an explanation is not as such the court or municipal assertion required in paragraph 3. A promised later meeting appointment is also not automatically treated as an extension of the deadline.
Properly separate other price issues
§18 additionally contains special rules on fixed prices and later fee adjustments. [WGG18] A question about the manifest unreasonableness of a purchase fixed price therefore does not automatically take the construction settlement route of this article without review.
In the hypothetical case the tenant party disputes a specific item contained in the construction settlement. They first check the linkage and then have the correct procedural route determined. The ordinary operating costs statement for the previous year remains a separate matter. The example therefore confirms neither a cost error nor an already successful recovery.
Conclude with a determined review result
In conclusion there is either a comprehensible explanation of the item or a concretely formulated further objection with a clarified enforcement route. Keep proof of the lodging and all versions together with the expert information. The essential decision does not concern the word “final settlement” but its real subject and the corresponding statutory route.