What may I, as a landlord, pass on to the tenant?

Rule of thumb: recurring vs one-off

Only the following can be passed on: recurring operating costs that arise regularly through use of the property. NOT apportionable are: acquisition, maintenance, repairs, administration, and your own effort as the owner.

The 17 cost types under German operating-costs regulation

• 1. Property tax (ongoing public charges)
• 2. Water costs (fresh water + wastewater)
• 3. Heizungskosten (Brennstoff, Wartung, Schornsteinfeger)
• 4. Hot water costs (energy + water)
• 5. Aufzug (Strom, Wartung, Notrufkosten)
• 6. Street cleaning + refuse collection (public charges)
• 7. Building cleaning + pest control
• 8. Garden maintenance (pruning, watering, winter-service materials)
• 9. Building lighting (electricity for stairwell, exterior)
• 10. Schornsteinreinigung
• 11. Property and liability insurance of the building
• 12. Caretaker / building superintendent (wages apportioned only for ongoing tasks)
• 13. Gemeinschafts-Antennenanlage / Kabelfernsehen (bis 30.06.2024)
• 14. Laundry facilities of the residential complex
• 15. Other operating costs (only if specifically named in the tenancy agreement!)

What you may NEVER pass on

• Administrative costs (not even on a pro-rata basis — not even as a flat fee)
• Repairs, restoration, maintenance
• Rent-loss risk allowance
• Reading of heating/water meters (except calibration charges for the meters themselves)
• Account maintenance charges or bank charges
• The landlord's telephone and postage costs
• Tax adviser/solicitor fees
• Modernisation measures (only via German Civil Code, max. 8% per year)
• Charges for preparing the service-charge statement itself

Dispute traps: caretaker, lift, refuse

Caretaker: Only the PORTION for recurring tasks (cleaning, monitoring, maintenance) is apportionable. Administrative activities such as correspondence with tenants, bookkeeping and minor repairs are NOT — you must deduct these in the payroll calculation (typically 60–80% apportionable).

Lift: Ground-floor tenants must also bear their share of the costs (Federal Court of Justice). Exception: an explicit agreement in the tenancy contract that ground-floor tenants are excluded.

Refuse: Apportion on a flat-rate basis by living area, NOT by number of occupants — unless an occupant-number clause is explicitly agreed in the tenancy contract.

What must be stated in the tenancy contract?

For you to be able to pass costs on at all, the tenancy contract must state:

• "The tenant bears the operating costs in accordance with German operating-costs regulation"
• OR a complete itemisation of the specific items to be apportioned
• IMPORTANT: "other operating costs" (item 17) must be listed INDIVIDUALLY — otherwise they are not apportionable (Federal Court of Justice)

Allocation key — which one fits?

• Living space: standard for most items (refuse, insurance, caretaker, garden maintenance)
• Consumption: mandatory for water, heating, hot water (German heating regulation §6 — 50-70 % consumption-based)
• Number of persons: permissible for water/refuse, but only if explicitly agreed in the contract
• Residential units: for flats of equal size + where there is a lift (common)

How Rentprime helps you

Rentprime knows all 17 cost types under the German Operating Costs Ordinance (German operating-costs regulation) plus the permitted allocation keys, and automatically suggests the right key for every receipt. The AI receipt recognition automatically sorts heating-oil, water or caretaker invoices into the correct cost type. For contentious traps (caretaker, lift) it provides contextual pointers to current German Federal Court of Justice case law.