A service charge statement often fits on one page, and that is exactly what makes it opaque: everything is summarised. Here is how to read it line by line, and above all how to check that the amount claimed from you follows known rules.
What a service charge statement is
The statement is the step from the building's expenditure to your personal share. The property manager groups the financial year's expenditure by category — water, heating, maintenance, insurance, fees — and then allocates it among the co-owners. A good statement is therefore read in two stages: first what the building spent, then why you bear that particular fraction of it.
The allocation follows your shares
Charges are allocated in proportion to each owner's shares, according to the rules set out in the co-ownership regulations. This is essential: the allocation key is not a convention of the property manager, it is written in your building's regulations.
A practical consequence: two neighbouring buildings may perfectly well allocate the same expense differently. Before challenging a line, the first document to re-read is therefore your own co-ownership regulations — not what the building next door does.
Advances, actual expenditure, balance
You do not pay charges as they arise: you pay advances, usually monthly, calculated on a budget voted at the general meeting. The statement compares that budget with the expenditure actually incurred and shows a balance — in your favour or against you.
A balance to pay is therefore not in itself a sign of drift: it may simply reflect a cautious budget. What deserves attention is the gap between budget and actual figures, item by item, and the explanation for it.
What does not get mixed in: the works fund
Contributions to the works fund are earmarked for works voted by the meeting, whereas provisions for charges cover the day-to-day running of the building. Two separate lines, two separate purposes — and the fund follows its own rules, set out in our article on the works fund.
The heating share: what changes, and what does not
The "heating" line is the one moving most at present: the law of 28 November 2024 on sub-metering requires individual thermal energy meters and periodic consumption information. Devices installed before the law entered into force must be made remotely readable, or replaced by remotely readable devices, by 1 January 2027 at the latest, unless that is technically impossible or entails disproportionate costs. Monthly information is due only in buildings equipped with remotely readable meters; failing that, the reading result is communicated within two months of the reading. In a co-ownership the chain runs property manager → co-owners → occupants.
Two qualifications avoid expecting too much. First, the regime remains mixed: heating costs are first split between fuel or energy costs and other heating costs, and the 0.30 coefficient applies only to the first of those masses — it does not bear on the total of the line. Within that mass, 30 % remain allocated by shares and 70 % follows individual consumption. Buildings equipped with individual meters before the law keep the coefficient chosen between 0 and 0.50 at the time of installation, with the option of replacing it by 0.30 (article 9). Second, the law contains broad exceptions — notably the internal heating circuits of well-insulated buildings — so that for many buildings the heating line will not change. The detail is in our article on sub-metering.
It is the general meeting that approves
The annual general meeting approves the accounts for the past financial year, notified to it with the convening notice, votes the forecast budget, sets the works fund contribution and decides on works. Other items commonly appear on the agenda — monthly advances, discharge of the property manager, working capital: these are widespread practices, useful, but not required by any text. In other words, the statement is not a unilateral invoice: it forms part of a collective decision.
And that has a direct consequence: once the accounts are approved, the meeting's decision binds everyone. Challenging it is reserved to dissenting or absent co-owners, within two months of notification of the minutes, on pain of forfeiture (article 34 of the law of 16 May 1975). After that, the decision can no longer be challenged — which does not prevent having a material error in applying the statement corrected.
How to prepare your questions usefully
Three habits are usually enough. Re-read the applicable allocation key in the co-ownership regulations. Compare, item by item, the budget voted with the actual figures, and ask for an explanation of significant gaps. Finally, have your questions added to the agenda of the meeting within the prescribed time limits — that is the channel which makes it possible to obtain a deliberation in the meeting and to keep a record of it in the minutes.
Where to find the rules
The applicable framework is set out in the law of 16 May 1975 on the statute of co-ownership of built properties, published in Mémorial A No 28 of 23 May 1975, and in the laws amending it, as well as in the Grand-Ducal Regulation of 13 June 1975 (Mémorial A No 34 of 20 June 1975), which governs among other things the notification of the accounts and the forecast budget.