Hallo Trust7 Community, It is great pleasure to find this community and happy to see that there is someone to share our concerns in foreighn country. We received a Heizung Nachzahlung for 1050 Euros in addition to 350 euro Vorauszahlung for 47,4 sqm flat from Dec 15th 2013 to April 31st 2014 about 4.5 months. I requested my Vermieter to explain or prove that the calculations are correct because it does not reasonable (~ 6 euros per q.m. per month). She threatens us with Lawer Notice. I'm concerned about expenses if it lands in a legal dispute. How much it would cost if I need the help of a Lawyer ? I recently signed a Rechtschutzversicherung but they may not take up this case because the first bill I received is last year Dec 2014. Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,

sorry to hear about your problem. Please let me know in which city/town you are living, so i can check for lawyers in your town. Usually in every big city of Germany there is a "Verbraucherszentrale", their lawyers charge you flat 15 euros per appointment and usually they will give you a letter (or tempelate) and simply send it by registered post (Rückschreiben) to your landlord. This should normally work in your case, as she must provide you with the copies of original bills and prove that exactly how much units you have consumed. In case you did not used that much heating, than you must not pay for it.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Best regards,
Raj++

Hi Raj, Thanks a lot for the hint. I sent an email to VZ in München requesting an appointment. I will update the forum how it develops.

1050€ Nachzahlung is relatively high for a 50sq.m house. With the Nachzahlung request your Vermieter should also provide the bills supporting them.

• Do you have meters for house heating and warm water exclusively measuring your consumption. If so and your provide the bills supporting them, there is nothing much you can do rather than pay it?
• Did you record all the meter readings when you rented the apartment?
• What’s your billing period? April to April or dec to dec ?
• How is your warm water consumption and how is it heated. electric or gas?
• How good is your apartment insulated?

Without considering all these facts it’s difficult to say about Nachzahlung. It could be that you have just used too much of heating and warm water or it could also be that your Vermieter is unreasonable in his billing.
 
Before going up to the lawyer just check calculations by yourself. If there are separate meters then it's calculated according  to your individual consumption. If not then the heating it calculated/averaged according the sq.m and the warm water according to number of persons living in the apartment.
 
You have all the rights to ask and check for the bills. Comparing with the bills of pervious years will give you an idea of the average consumption in the house.
 
 
-coolguy

Hi, There are meters in every room and warm water meters are separate. Billing period is from Dec1st 2013 to 31st April 2014 as we moved-in on Dec1st. Warm water readins are around 150 euro Nachzahlung and remaining comes from Heizung. And this Nachzahlung is only for  4.5 months not for the whole year. I registered at MieterHilfenMieter and they did some calculations based on the whole consumption of the house, it comes out that, we use 10% of whole living area in the building but cost sharing is close to 30% to the total costs of Heizung for that rechnungs year..and average comes around 6 euro per sq.m per month, and Munich average for that year is 1,16

If you have moved in on 1Dec then according to the übergabeprotokoll you should have noted down the meter reading of the warm, cold water and the readings on all the heating elements in the house (WZ,SZ,Küche,Bad).

You cannot say that average is 1.16€/sq.m and you pay according to it. ,
That's why there are meters installed to pay for  what you use. Calculate according to the consumpton not on average.

Example: If you stay in home for the entire day, you use up more heating rather than most people in the house iftey go out for work. So even though you occupy 10% of te house you may endup using 30% of heating and sometime lessthan 5%,if you travel more.

This isjuat an advice. People at VZ are more experienced in these cases. Update your result in this forum.

We have the Übergabeprotokoll and our bill is confined to the time we are in the flat. We have done the Zwischenablesung during Einzug so everything is done in proper way. Regarding 1.16, I mentioned it as reference,  expecting the same price for us would be completely uneducated guess. Out of this 5 months, I moved in on 15th December and till 19th of Jan I 'm alone, leaving home in the morning hours and back late evening. Now I got a Termin at VZ next week and Lets cross fingers.

Hello there!
I have exactly the same problem: before xmas 2014 we got a letter from landord about nebekosten nachzahlung, they state we owe them 600 euros for 2013/2014!
We were shocked about the bill as we paid almost 700 warm miete and we are very careful about energy use. I talked to my colleagues at work and they suggested I register with mieterverein, which I did, but I had to wait 3 months to recieve a free consultation. Last week finally had an appointment with mieterverein and they were rather rude, didn`t really even try to understand our issue deeper and just said that in Germany it is normal to have 600 euro afterbills and its normal not to get your deposit back, in other words she might as well have just said: dont like it, piss of! Meanwhile I have heard that a person has one year to pay theses bills, I was also told by a colleague that I have a right to request a copy of all contracts from the landlord, which we did and they refused at first, then they said we have to contact the companies providing all the nebenkosten services ourselves and request a copy from them and now they want us to go and have a termin, then they would allow us to look at the contracts, we said we dont have time, as we cant just take time off work and requested tham to send the copies per email or letter, now they want to charge us 2 euros per each photocopy sheet plus postage! and they have sent us 2 emails in the last week threatening to sue us if the bill is not paid in the next 3 weeks!!! I would appreciate any advice!

I had an appointment with VZ München and he basically in favor of paying the bill because of the following reasons  1) If the windows are open in the partly-open mode for long time then it would almost double the heating consumption 2) If there are funiture or curtains covering the heaters then it would also produce the same effect as partly-open windows 3) lastly it's technically not possible prove the previous years heating consumption. Atleast he is friendly and provided good technical input on how to use heating machines. It seems like we reached end of the road with not much success :-(

As said earlier, if all the meter readings are avialable then its a straight forward calcualtions.

Should check th readings regularly. Most people livng in cold countries are advised from childhood on how to use and optimize the heating.

So its normal for people coming form different climate zone to use a bit moe of heating than the locals.