ᐅ Utility Costs Settlement – How Should the Statement Be Prepared?

Yvonne, for an apartment, he doesn’t need to get something like that. He should do it together with someone or have it demonstrated to him. Consultation hours for property owners. If he is renting out, he should definitely join the association anyway, mainly because of the cheap group insurance policies.

The programs I know are designed to manage multiple residential units across different properties. You have to manually enter the allocation keys yourself — for example, how much of the consumption is divided based on actual usage and how much based on square meters (sqm) — into the program. Once all the initial settings for the property are configured, you only need to enter the incoming invoices and the consumption data from the meter readings at the end to receive the billing statement. However, this effort is only worthwhile if you can bill several residential units at once. If there are only two units, the billing process is very simple.

Well, I rent to my stepfather, so everything isn’t that complicated. But I still want to do it properly.

We don’t have a hot water meter here, only in the water heater tank.

I still don’t fully understand the hot water situation. The heating costs are only for the heating system, right? I don’t recognize the electricity used by the heat pump for hot water.

You can think of it like this: suppose you need, for example, 1000€ for heating electricity, maintenance, circulation pumps, etc. If your system does not allow you to read how much heat it used for heating and hot water preparation, a flat rate is often applied—let’s say 20% for hot water and 80% for heating. Then you take the readings from your hot water meter and those from your tenant’s unit and add them together. After that, you divide the 200€ by this total and multiply it by the respective consumption. The same principle applies to heat meters for heating. In some rental agreements, around 30% of the costs are calculated based on square meters, since providing heat and heating energy incurs costs even if it is not used.

I find the last sentence unfair, the one about the 30% base heating costs. That’s what I pay rent for. It’s like renting a car and then having to pay an additional flat fee just for the engine. I only pay for the fuel I actually use.
My wife and I have rented properties for decades and still do, and not to relatives. We include things like chimney sweeping, snow removal, and heating system maintenance in the rent. Also property tax and insurance. This makes the rent a bit higher, but these costs are simply part of the house or apartment. They are fixed. The tenant only pays for what they can actually influence through their behavior: gas consumption, waste collection, water and sewage. Electricity is contracted by the tenant themselves. That’s how I calculate it. If the apartment cost 150, I want a 5% pre-tax return, which is 7.5, plus roughly 0.5 for the mentioned items, making 8 total, divided by 12 equals the monthly rent. Karsten

Thank you @BratacDD

In this case, I would rather avoid a separate billing as well as this office work and opt for a flat-rate rent.