Homeowners generally still have some time until the heat law comes into force. However, there are already important regulations that apply to a certain group of owners and must be met by the end of the year. The Association of Property Owners (WiE) points this out.
Many homeowners are still hesitant about deciding which heating system they should install in their home in the future. Large cities, for example, have until mid-2026 to complete their heat planning. For the other municipalities in Germany, the deadline even ends in mid-2028. Until then, the scope for action for homeowners is limited. Only when parts of a community, a municipality or a city cannot be connected to the district or local heating network is the heat pump one of the few heating alternatives.
Owners and homeowner associations who already own a house or apartment with gas heating must act now. According to the “Owned Housing” association, around four million people are affected. The focus is on a so-called inventory. “Welt Online” first reported on the requirement.
Floor heating usually consists of individual radiators or heating devices that are installed in the respective residential units or rooms. These units can run on various energy sources including gas, oil, electricity or renewable energy such as solar thermal.
Owners with floor heating must take action. To do this, information about the type, age, operating condition and nominal heat output of the system must be obtained from the district chimney sweep by December 31, 2024. The chimney sweep must submit the information to the homeowners’ association within six months. This is provided for in paragraph 71n paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Building Energy Act.
On top of that. The owners must record all information about the condition of the heating system, the number of radiators, the route of the pipes and what changes have been made to the heating system. This includes, for example, repairs and spare parts that contribute to increasing efficiency. This data must also be available by the end of the year and communicated to the community by June 2025.
FOCUS online advises: In order to keep the administrative effort manageable, the homeowners’ associations should create forms in advance to query the information in a targeted and uniform manner. You should set this point on the date of the next owners’ meeting. The information must be available consistently in text form. This can also be done in electronic form.
The inventory must be completed and processed by September 2025. “Since this must be started by December 31, 2024 at the latest, apartment owners with floor heating systems should ask their administration to put the procedure on the agenda of their next owners’ meeting,” advises WiE legal officer Michael Nack in an interview with “Welt Online”.
Why the bureaucratic effort? Using the information collected, homeowners should know exactly what to do if their gas heater breaks. The owners and the owners’ association need the documents in order to decide on the future of the heating system. The following also applies: If a floor is converted to gas heating, an owners’ meeting must be called immediately.
The municipality’s heat planning then applies as the deadline.
For example, if the gas floor heating fails before mid-2026 or mid-2028, it can be replaced with a new or used heater. The additional effort is therefore low.
If the gas floor heating fails after these deadlines, the homeowners’ association must present a concept within the next five years as to how it will ensure the heat supply. The data from the inventory should help. This heating concept must then be solved via central heating within the next eight years. Either with a connection to the heating network or via a heating system that can be operated with 65 percent renewable energy.