The announcement sounded big: In mid-June, Vonovia promised to have "the entire process of the utility bill" independently checked. Previously, the SPIEGEL reported inconsistencies in the heating costs in a Cologne residential park.
Now the report commissioned by Vonovia is available - and you probably have to read it about as carefully as a utility bill of the largest German housing company.
Anyone who had hoped for comprehensive education as a tenant, should be disappointed. Vonovia has sent four skinny pages to media outlets over the past few days, on a note paper by the auditors of Deloitte and titled "Summary of the Results of Our Special Investigation". In addition a press release, which is just as long. Vouchers are missing in the short version completely, who asks for the complete report, receives a rejection.
But the PR department never tires of emphasizing a message: Vonovia is innocent.
In fact, the auditors of Deloitte have acquitted the housing company of the gravest accusation: "Our investigation has revealed no evidence of manipulation of the heating bill by Vonovia SE," writes Deloitte. For Vonovia, the settlement represented "a pure running post with no economic return".
In the Cologne residential complex, the values for delivered and used heating energy did not match in 2015 - about 20 percent more energy than was consumed. Despite this difference Vonovia had allocated the entire costs to the tenants. The Deloitte examiners now call this a "special case". This was therefore due to the fact that the heat supplier estimated and did not read the heating energy and that estimate was above actual consumption.
"Representation does not apply"
The heat supplier is in this case the Rhine energy - and rejects the charge. "This presentation is not correct," the group announced on SPIEGEL request. It was read in October 2015 and June 2016 - and the estimated value for December 2015 is in between. The calculation bases are "correct and plausible", in comparable cases the estimates are very precise.
But why was it ever appreciated and not simply read? Deloitte writes that the heat supplier justified the estimate by stating that "access to the meter was not possible in December 2015".
This also confirms Rheinenergie - and adds a detail that is missing in the Deloitte report: The counter is in the sovereignty of Vonovia. "We depend on a janitor giving us access," says Rheinenergie.
Same status as in the middle of June
With the blame between Vonovia and Rheinenergie in Cologne is now but exactly at the point where it was in mid-June, so before the Deloitte report, already. Although Vonovia now wants to "work at Rheinenergie for the overestimated estimates to be repaid," as Vonovia spokeswoman Nina Henckel writes. "We will complete the process in September and inform each tenant individually."
Whether the tenants get back on this way, however, the approximately 60,000 euros, is at least questionable. Rheinenergie states that the estimated values are absolutely in order: "We see no reason to talk about goodwill regulations in this context."
For the Cologne tenant Ernst zur Linden, the case shows how Vonovia deals with its customers. Despite the large differences, the group had put the heating costs aside and then spent a year and a half "doing no harm to counter the additional burden on the tenants". For months Linden had been trying to get an explanation for the 20 percent with letters and phone calls. Finally, he filed criminal charges for fraud, but little did happen.
Although Deloitte has now stated that the test has revealed "no evidence of a delay" by the Vonovia - but zur Linden has made quite different experiences. According to his own statement, over a year he received either no answer, standard letter or contradictory statements. The ex-manager is convinced that without the media coverage nothing would have changed.
Vonovia wants to refund 14,000 euros
After all, in one point, the Vonovia now makes a concrete commitment: 49 tenants are to be refunded a total of about 14,000 euros heating costs, which they had paid too much due to a transmission error, as Vonovia spokeswoman Henckel says. Zur Linden had already discovered this mistake in January 2017 and got his money back - but his neighbors did not spend more than a year and a half.
What are the Cologne results now for the remaining approximately one million Vonovia tenants in Germany? For Ernst zur Linden is far from the only one who complains about too high and opaque additional costs. Numerous letters have been received by SPIEGEL since the Cologne case was reported. Similar reports have been published for months and years in many local and regional media.
Here, the Deloitte report provides few answers. Although the inspectors looked at how Vonovia generally charges heating costs and hot water. Accordingly, the process "basically ensure a proper, orderly and understandable course of billing". Anything else would be for a DAX company that earns its money with apartments, but probably a disgrace.
In addition, many tenants complain high costs not only in the heating, but in completely different areas, such as janitors, winter service, garbage disposal or garden maintenance. Here, the situation is even more obscure, because Vonovia assigns some of these orders to its own subsidiaries and thereby earns.
But these items did not even look at the examiners of Deloitte.