Smoke detectors must not be counted as operating costs

The tenant council Halle-Neustadt and the Free Voters Halle had already spoken in the past to ensure that the renting of smoke alarms could not be counted as operating costs.

As has only become known now, the Düsseldorf Regional Court (file number: 21 S 52/19) has decided that it is a degraded acquisition costs and that there are therefore no operating costs in accordance with Section 1 of the Operating Cost Ordinance.There is no comparability with the rental costs for consumption meters for water.The Düsseldorf Regional Court thus follows the legal opinion represented for the first time by the Halle District Court on this question.

As the random checks of the operating cost accounts sent again at the end of 2020, rental costs for smoke alarms are still included in the operating costs accounts by large parts of the housing industry, which is illegal, according to lawyer Johannes Menke.The tenants are therefore advisable to object to the operating cost statements on this point and to refuse to pay the rental costs for the smoke alarms.