Hausgeld is the monthly payment every owner of a flat in Germany makes to the owners' association for the shared building: heating, water, cleaning, insurance, the administrator, and a reserve for future repairs. Your share follows your share of the building. The owners vote the amount each year and square it up with an annual statement, so it can go up, come back as a refund, or be topped up with a special levy for a big repair.
1. What Hausgeld is
When you buy a flat (Eigentumswohnung), you own the flat itself alone and share the rest with the other owners: the land, the roof, the facade, the stairwell, the heating system. Together the owners form the owners' association (Gemeinschaft der Wohnungseigentümer), and the association runs the shared property (§ 18(1) WEG). Day to day, an administrator (Verwalter) does that work for it: pays the bills, hires the cleaners and tradespeople, keeps the accounts and collects the money.
Hausgeld is that money. Legally it is an advance payment towards the association's costs and its reserve, and you usually pay it monthly. It isn't rent, a fee to the administrator or a tax, and it has nothing to do with your mortgage: you pay it whether the flat is paid off or not, and whether you live in it, let it or leave it empty.
2. How your share is worked out
By default, every owner carries the association's costs in proportion to their co-ownership share (Miteigentumsanteil): the fraction of the building that goes with the flat, entered in the land register, often in thousandths (§ 16 WEG). A larger flat usually has a larger share, but the fraction was set when the building was divided, so it doesn't always match the floor area.
The owners can vote a different split for particular costs or kinds of costs, for example the lift by flat, or water by meter (§ 16(2) WEG). Heating follows its own rule: 50 to 70 % of the central heating's costs are split by each flat's measured use and the rest by floor area (§ 7(1) HeizkostenV), so a flat that heats little pays less.
The arithmetic, with round numbers: the plan for a building budgets €60,000 for the year, reserve included, and your flat's share is 85/1,000. Your part is €5,100 a year, or €425 a month. Real plans split some lines differently, heating above all, so treat this only as the method.
3. What it pays for, and what it doesn't
The administrator's plan lists every line. They fall into three groups:
- Running costs. Heating and hot water, water and drainage, waste collection, cleaning of the shared areas, the caretaker and the garden, the lift, electricity for the stairwell and the outside lights, and the building's insurance. The association has to insure the building at its replacement value and the owners against their liability as property owners (§ 19(2) no. 3 WEG).
- Running the association. The administrator's fee, the association's bank account and similar costs.
- The reserve. Part of every payment goes into the maintenance reserve (Erhaltungsrücklage), which the law requires to be adequate (§ 19(2) no. 4 WEG). It pays for the roof, the windows, the heating system and the facade when they are due.
What isn't in it: anything for your own flat alone. Electricity and internet, your contents insurance, repairs inside your flat and your mortgage are yours to pay directly. So is the property tax (Grundsteuer): each flat is assessed on its own (§ 244(3) no. 3 BewG), and the town sends its bill to the owner (§ 10 GrStG), not to the association.
4. The plan, the statement and the owners' vote
Hausgeld runs on a yearly cycle, set out in § 28 WEG:
- The plan. For each calendar year the administrator draws up a plan of expected income and spending (Wirtschaftsplan). The owners vote on the advance payments and the reserve, and your monthly Hausgeld is your share of that (§ 28(1) WEG).
- The annual statement. After the year ends, the administrator prepares the statement of what was actually spent (Jahresabrechnung). The owners then vote on top-up payments (Nachschüsse) or on adjusting the advances (§ 28(2) WEG). A cold winter or a rise in energy prices shows up here, usually as a top-up and a higher plan for the next year.
- The reserve report. The administrator also gives every owner a yearly report on the reserve and the association's main assets (Vermögensbericht, § 28(4) WEG).
The votes happen at the owners' meeting (Eigentümerversammlung), which the administrator calls at least once a year, as a rule with three weeks' notice (§ 24(1), (4) WEG). A majority of the votes cast decides; by law each owner has one vote, though the declaration of division can set another rule, such as votes by share (§ 25(1), (2) WEG). If you can't be there, you can give someone a proxy in text form, an email included (§ 25(3) WEG).
A resolution binds every owner, those who voted against it too, unless a court sets it aside. The court action has to be filed within one month of the vote, and its reasons given within two months (§ 45 WEG). Short of that, every owner can ask to see the association's records, invoices and contracts included (§ 18(4) WEG).
5. Special levies and the reserve
When a repair costs more than the reserve holds, the owners can vote a special levy (Sonderumlage): a one-off payment on top of the Hausgeld, shared like the other costs unless they decide otherwise (§ 16(2) WEG). With the shares from the example above: a new roof costs €200,000, the reserve holds €80,000, and the owners vote a levy for the remaining €120,000. Your 85/1,000 comes to €10,200.
That is the trade-off between buildings. One with low Hausgeld and a thin reserve is cheaper month by month and more likely to ask for a levy when the roof or the heating is due. One with higher Hausgeld and a full reserve costs more now and spreads the big repairs over the years. Neither is wrong in itself. What matters is whether the reserve fits the building's age and the works the owners have already discussed, which is what the papers in the next section tell you.
6. Before you buy a flat
Count the Hausgeld as part of the monthly cost of owning, next to the mortgage, and ask the seller or the agent for the papers that show where it is heading:
- The current plan and the last annual statement: today's Hausgeld, and whether last year needed a top-up.
- The reserve report: how much the reserve holds.
- The minutes of the last few owners' meetings: works voted or put off, levies, disputes with the administrator or between owners.
- The register of resolutions (Beschluss-Sammlung), which the administrator keeps. You can see it once the seller authorises you (§ 24(7) WEG), so ask for that authorisation.
The reservation guide lists the other documents to have before you commit.
The seller's arrears stay the seller's. The Federal Court of Justice has held that a buyer isn't liable for Hausgeld the previous owner left unpaid, and that the association can't enforce it against the flat (BGH, V ZR 209/12, 13 September 2013). From when you pay, and how the current year's statement is split between you and the seller, is up to the purchase contract, so read that clause in the notary's draft. Usually you pay from the handover.
The reserve doesn't lower the transfer tax. The reserve belongs to the association, not to the seller, so it stays with the building when the flat changes hands. For the same reason the Federal Fiscal Court has ruled that the price on which transfer tax is charged isn't reduced by a share of the reserve (BFH, II R 49/17, 16 September 2020). The costs of buying a home lists the tax rate in each state.
7. Hausgeld and your tax
A flat you live in. The Hausgeld itself isn't deductible, but part of what it pays for is. 20 % of the labour costs for services such as cleaning, the caretaker and the garden comes off your income tax, up to €4,000 a year, and 20 % of the labour costs of tradespeople's repairs, up to €1,200 a year (§ 35a(2), (3) EStG). These limits are for all such costs of your household together, not just the Hausgeld. The annual statement, or a certificate from the administrator, has to show your share of them; ask for it if the statement doesn't (Federal Finance Ministry guidance, paras. 26 and 47).
A flat you let. Running costs such as water, heating and cleaning can be passed on to the tenant if the lease says so; the administrator's fee and repairs can't (§ 1(2) BetrKV). What you can't pass on counts against your rental income instead. The buy-to-let guide goes through the split and the tax.
8. When a financing expert can help
The Hausgeld, and the levy a thin reserve may bring, are part of what a flat really costs you each month, and so of what you can comfortably borrow. A financing expert works them into the budget alongside the loan, compares lenders' offers for you, and tells you what each one needs to see about the flat. Have the listing, the plan and the last annual statement, and your own income documents ready. You can ask for a financing expert who works in English.
For the purchase contract itself, the notary reads it out but doesn't negotiate it for you; a lawyer can check the draft: ask for a contract check.
Primary sources checked on 29 October 2026: the statutes, decisions and official pages linked above.