Annual billing

Annual settlement is in German residential property law one by the end of the financial year due settlement on the accrued revenues and expenses .

General

The homeowners' association incurs expenses or expenses (such as operating costs , maintenance reserves , administrative costs ) within an accounting period and generates income or income ( house money , real estate rents , insurance benefits ), which are summarized and compiled at the end of an accounting period (usually December 31 of each year). This compilation is called annual billing , which in the Condominium Act (WEG) is simply referred to as billing. It finally determines which burdens and costs the individual homeowner has to bear for the past year.

content

The annual statement must contain an overall statement, the individual cost types in accordance with the business plan , the individual statements for the individual apartments and the distribution key. The expenses are offset against the (target) income from house money and any special contributions. The result of each individual annual billing is either a positive ( credit ) or negative billing peak ( additional payment ). In addition, the development of the maintenance reserve must be shown in the annual statement . According to a decision by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), the actual and owed payments by the apartment owners to the maintenance reserve must be shown in the annual total and individual accounts. The maintenance reserve is not to be booked as an expense or as other costs; it is an inventory account .

Legal issues

According to Section 28 Paragraph 3 WEG and from Section 675 BGB , Section 666 BGB and Section 259 BGB, the condominium management is obliged to prepare an annual statement as part of the invoicing at the end of the calendar year . The principles of proper bookkeeping are to be observed. In addition, a customizable individual bill must be created for each apartment and part owner . A complete annual billing includes the individual bills and heating bills .

At the end of the financial year, the annual statement compiles the income and expenses actually incurred in accordance with Section 28 (3) WEG. This results in a comparison with the previous business plan , so that either additional payments or credits arise. If it turns out during the current financial year that the approaches in the business plan are not sufficient, the business plan must be supplemented and a special levy charged. An annual statement is not created like a balance sheet , but as a pure income and expenditure account according to the inflow and outflow principle .

If the declaration of division or the manager's contract do not contain any provisions on the deadline by which the manager must prepare the annual statement, he must prepare the statement within 6 months of the end of the accounting period. If an administrative advisory board has been appointed, it should, in accordance with Section 29 (3) WEG, review the billing before the decision is made at the owners' meeting and provide its opinion. The apartment owners' meeting then approves the annual accounts by majority vote ( Section 25 (1) WEG). Incorrect annual accounts must be contested within the contestation period of one month by a contestation suit in accordance with § 46 WEG at the local court.

Recipient of the annual statement

The manager is obliged to prepare an annual statement for each property unit. The addressee of the annual accounts is the owner who is entered in the apartment or partial ownership land register at the time of the decision on the settlement in the apartment owners' meeting . In the case of a sale of a condominium, the point in time at which the property is recorded in the land register is decisive for whether a claim from the annual statement (peak settlement) must be asserted by the administrator against the seller or against the buyer. The same person would accordingly also be the recipient of a credit from the annual statement. The purchaser is even liable for accounts receivable from previous years if he is already the owner at the time of the decision on the associated annual accounts. If the buyer is already the owner at the time of the decision, however, he is not responsible for any shortfalls that arose from the fact that the seller, while he was still the owner, did not make the house allowance payments agreed in the business plan or did not make them in full. In such a case, the seller remains the debtor of these advance payments and the new owner may not be charged with them in the annual statement. However, agreements may have been made in the community system that deviate from this statutory regulation. Typically, the purchase contract for the condominium contains provisions on the transfer of benefits and burdens. However, these agreements only apply between the buyer and seller; the rights of the homeowners association cannot be restricted thereby. For buyers and sellers, however, the sales contract offers the opportunity to compensate for any consequences of the legal situation that are perceived as inappropriate.

economic aspects

In addition to the business plan, the annual statement forms the basis for determining future house costs .

literature

• Literature on annual accounts in the catalog of the German National Library
• Johannes Bärmann (ed.), Apartment Ownership Act. Commentary , 11th edition, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60576-5
• Living in property eV (Ed.), The examination of the annual accounts. A practical guide for administrative advisory boards , Bonn 2012, ISBN 978-3-98-15045-1-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Werner Niedenführ / Egbert Kümmel / Nicole Vandenhouten, WEG: Commentary and manual on residential property law , 2010, p. 509
2. ↑ BGH, judgment of December 4, 2009, Az .: V ZR 44/09 = NJW 2010, 2127
3. ↑ Karl-Friedrich Moersch, The new energy pass from AZ: Lexicon for property owners and tenants , 2008, p. 76
4. ↑ Karl-Friedrich Moersch, The new energy pass from AZ: Lexicon for property owners and tenants , 2008, p. 41
5. ↑ BayObLG, decision of July 18, 1989, Az .: BReg 2 Z 66/89 = DB 1989, 1921
6. ↑ Rudolf Stürzer / Michael Koch / Georg Hopfensperger / Melanie Sterns-Kolbeck / Detlef Sterns, Praxishandbuch Wohnungseigentum , 2008, p. 116
7. ↑ BGH, judgment of July 5, 2006, Az .: VIII ZR 220/05 = NJW 2006, 3350
8. ^ BGH, decision of April 21, 1988, Az .: V ZB 10/87 = BGHZ 104, 197
9. ↑ Werner Merle, in: Johannes Bärmann (Ed.), Apartment Ownership Act - Commentary , 2010, § 28 Rn. 93.
10. ↑ BGH, decision of November 30, 1995, Az .: V ZB 16/95 = BGHZ 131, 228

Please note the information on legal issues!