CO2 costs for rental apartments: How to pay correctly for heating!

CO2 costs for rental apartments: How to pay correctly for heating!

The federal government's climate package aims to combat global warming by imposing a CO2 price on heating with fossil fuels such as gas and oil. This measure is intended to create incentives to promote more environmentally friendly heating technologies and renovations. Since 2023, the CO2 costs for rental apartments heated with oil or gas must be shared between tenants and landlords, which creates many new challenges.

Christian Handwerk, an energy expert at the NRW consumer advice center, emphasizes that landlords can be charged a share of the CO2 costs for floor heating. Particularly in the case of central heating, it is advisable to check the bills carefully to ensure that the costs have been correctly accounted for.

Cost breakdown details

The CO2 costs apply to all rental apartments that are heated with heating oil, natural gas or district heating, but not to apartments with only two parties if the landlord lives in one of the apartments. Individual agreements can be made here. An important aspect is the billing period, which must coincide with the heating bill. The right to cost sharing only exists if the billing period began on or after January 1, 2023.

In order to calculate the costs correctly, various information is required. This includes the greenhouse gas emissions of the energy supply as well as the total CO2 costs. Energy suppliers must show this information in their bills. Tenants also need the living space, which can be found in the rental agreement or measured themselves.

Tenants with their own floor heating can calculate their CO2 cost shares based on their fuel bills. The entire CO2 costs for the billing period must be allocated to the living space in order to determine the individual share per square meter. Even with central heating, landlords are obliged to calculate the shares correctly and give the tenants their share back.

Special cases and legal framework conditions

In special cases the cost calculation may be different. If natural gas is used not only for heating but also for cooking, the landlord's share of the costs should be reduced by five percent. There are also regulations for listed buildings that make energy improvements more difficult - here the landlord's share can even be reduced by half. If there are both monument protection and municipal usage obligations for district heating, the landlord cannot share in the CO2 costs at all.

If the cost calculation is not correct, landlords are obliged to show the share of the CO2 costs in the heating bill and deduct it accordingly. If this does not happen, tenants can reduce their heating costs by three percent. For more information, there are numerous resources available that provide a detailed overview of carbon costs and how they are calculated.

In summary, it should be noted that the new regulation on CO2 cost sharing has complex effects for both tenants and landlords. It is important to check the statements carefully and, if in doubt, to seek legal advice in good time in order to avoid possible disputes. The entire topic continues to be supported by organizations such as the NRW consumer advice center, which provides valuable information to make the new regulations understandable.

Further information on calculating the CO2 price for heating can be found here.