In times of inflation, higher taxes and rising wage costs for service providers, many tenants should pay close attention to their landlord's utility bills.

Again and again, individual positions lead to disputes, and it is not uncommon for the tenants to go to court over smaller amounts: a tenant and his landlord from the Cologne area have been arguing for years over 9.88 euros and 9.74 euros respectively.

Marcus Young

Editor in Business.

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A few weeks ago, the eighth civil senate at the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe ruled in your case that the tenant does not have to pay for the costs of renting smoke alarm devices from his landlord.

According to the decision of May 11, 2022 (Az.: VIII ZR 379/20), the operating costs are non-recoverable expenses.

In the initial case, the owner had informed his long-term tenant in 2015 that he would equip the building with smoke alarms.

From the following year, the ancillary cost statement showed the item "Rent + maintenance smoke detector", for which each tenant had to pay proportionately.

The tenant objected and sued.

Because: Operating costs that can be passed on to the tenant result from the catalog of Paragraph 2 No. 1 -16 Operating Costs Ordinance (BetrKV).

If a type of cost is not listed, only "other costs" can be considered for the apportionment.

This includes, above all, new technical developments that the legislature did not think of when the law was passed.

The civil senate affirmed this in the case of smoke alarms, which are only installed in living spaces afterwards.

Like other courts, the highest civil judges then focused on the comparability with other cases from the catalog of costs.

And this is where the apportionability ultimately failed.

Ultimately, these are “disguised acquisition costs” because they replace the acquisition costs that the landlord would otherwise incur, the judges write in their judgment: “However, acquisition costs do not represent operating costs.”

This principle cannot be circumvented if the landlord decides to rent the smoke alarm device instead of purchasing it, emphasizes the BGH.

The Senate blocked an analogous application, because when the law was last changed in 2012, there was already an obligation to install smoke alarm devices in a large number of federal states - nevertheless, the legislator did not make use of the possibility of reducing the costs for renting smoke alarm devices in Germany record the operating cost catalogue.

In terms of content, the tenant was relieved, but due to a formal error, the Cologne Regional Court had to decide again in the legal dispute.

On the other hand, if the owner had bought the smoke alarm device himself, he could have recovered the acquisition costs by adjusting the net cold rent.

The installation is a modernization measure that the tenant has to tolerate.

In addition, he must then also expect an increase in rent.

On the other hand, when it comes to maintenance, the judges in Karlsruhe have already decided in the past that regularly recurring maintenance costs, for example for fire extinguishers and fire protection equipment, can be passed on to the tenant via the operating cost statement.