Energy certificate

If a house or apartment is sold or rented out, interested parties must be informed about the energy condition of the building without being asked. An energy certificate is also mandatory for new buildings. It supplements the documents of the building application.

You can get the consumption certificate (“small” energy certificate) from your energy supplier. The certificate of need may only be issued by certified specialists and requires a personal inspection. The experts include, for example: Building energy consultants.

You can create energy certificates, whether demand certificates or consumption certificates, directly online for your property using your energy consumption. To do this, enter the required data into the online form and shortly afterwards you will receive a legally valid energy certificate.

Depending on the building, more comprehensive calculations are required; on average the costs are between 300 and 500 euros.

Roughly speaking, one can say that an energy certificate or an energy passport for an average single-family home costs 50 - 100 euros in the case of a consumption certificate.

Owners who advertise and sell a property without an energy certificate or with incorrect or false information face a fine of up to 15,000 euros.

How long does it take to order an energy certificate? Ordering the cards usually takes different amounts of time: While the form for a consumption card can be filled out in around 20 minutes, this can take 45 minutes or more for demand cards.

Owners who live in their property themselves do not need an energy certificate. Monuments and buildings with a maximum usable area of 50 square meters are also exempt from the ID requirement. The same applies to holiday homes.

Almost every new building that is to be heated to normal temperatures needs an energy certificate. You will also need ID if you want to sell or rent out a house or apartment. The requirements for this are based on the Building Energy Act. The Energy Saving Ordinance (EnEV) previously applied.

All buildings for which three years of consumption values are not available must be chosen as a requirement certificate. Buildings built before 1978 that have fewer than five residential units and that have not been comprehensively renovated in accordance with the Thermal Insulation Ordinance also require a certificate of need.

In principle, the energy certificate is valid via the Internet using an online questionnaire.

The basis for creating the energy certificate is information on heating energy consumption in the last three billing years and electricity consumption in the last three years.

An energy certificate provides information about the energy efficiency of properties and is therefore an important decision-making aid when renting or purchasing a residential building. There are two types of energy certificate, the demand certificate and the consumption certificate.

For new buildings or newly concluded financing or extensions, the borrower may be asked to present the energy certificate. However, this option is not readily available in real estate.

For residential buildings with up to four residential units that were built before the 1977 Thermal Insulation Ordinance came into force, the needs-based energy certificate (needs certificate) is required.

The most important thing in brief: The energy certificate evaluates the energy efficiency of a building based on various parameters. Demand certificates and consumption certificates have different values because they are based on different data and calculation methods.

The seller of the house must always bear the costs for the energy certificate. The amount depends on the building and the type of ID card. You should expect to pay up to 100 euros for a consumption certificate. A certificate of need is significantly more expensive at up to 500 euros.

Who has to pay for the energy certificate? The seller (owner, manager or broker) is responsible for issuing the energy certificate. This is regulated in the Energy Saving Ordinance (EnEV), which was revised in 2014. Accordingly, the seller also bears the costs for the energy certificate.

Since August 1, 2021, the authorities have been checking the certificates in accordance with the new Building Energy Act (GEG) BauSV: As the Building Energy Act (GEG) stipulates, the responsible authorities in the federal states check the energy certificates issued for buildings.

Since 2014, no new rental agreement can be concluded without an energy certificate.

The energy certificate is required by law for houses and apartments - and must be renewed every ten years. Old ID cards are now expiring.

Which houses are affected by the renovation obligation? Basically, the motto is “Worst First”: the worst buildings go first. According to the specifications, residential buildings with classes G and F must be renovated to at least class E by around 2030.

Residential buildings with no more than two apartments, one of which the owner already lived in in February 2002, are initially exempt from insulation obligations. Here, the insulation is only due after a change of ownership - the deadline is then two years after the change of ownership.

According to these regulations, homeowners are obliged to carry out energy-saving renovations under certain conditions. If they do not do this, it may be an administrative offense according to Section 27 EnEV. In such a case, a fine of up to 50,000 euros must be expected.

The fear of many unsettled owners is that a new tax will be applied to equalize the burden on their properties in 2024. But politicians and legal experts have now given the all-clear: There should be no equalization of burdens that would deprive homeowners of their properties in 2024.

Anyone who buys, inherits or acquires a one- or two-family house as a gift has two years to comply with the renovation obligation in the event of a change of ownership under the GEG.

From 2025 the property tax will be recalculated. Homeowners will have to provide additional information about their properties as early as summer 2022. Many people are not aware of this. What's particularly annoying is that different rules apply depending on the federal state.

If the attic is uninhabited, it is significantly cheaper financially to insulate the top floor ceiling. However, if the attic is converted into living space, the roof must be insulated in accordance with the regulations of the Building Energy Act.

Tenants in old apartments are not entitled to thermal insulation to eliminate the risk of mold formation. According to a ruling by the Federal Court of Justice (AZ: VIII ZR 271/17 and VIII ZR 67/18), landlords do not have to modernize an old building.

The EU Parliament has voted for stricter requirements for the energy efficiency of buildings. Accordingly, many properties will have to be renovated in the coming years. Specifically, residential buildings should achieve at least the energy efficiency class “E” by 2030 and the energy efficiency class “D” by 2033.

Generally oil or gas heaters that are over 30 years old. Accordingly, from 2023 onwards, only heaters that were installed after January 1, 1994 may be operated in Germany. Constant temperature boilers that run on oil or gas.