(1) The contractual parties may agree that the lessee is to bear the operating costs. Operating costs are the costs that are incurred on an ongoing basis by the owner or the holder of the heritable building right as a result of the ownership of or the heritable building right to the plot of land or as a result of the use of the building, the outbuildings, facilities, installations and the land in accordance with the purpose for which they are intended. The drawing up of the statement of operating costs continues to be governed by the Ordinance on Operating Costs (Betriebskostenverordnung) of 25 November 2003 (Federal Law Gazette I pp. 2346, 2347). The Federal Government is authorised to enact provisions on the drawing up of the statement of operating costs by statutory instrument without the approval of the Bundesrat.
(2) The contractual parties may agree, subject to other provisions, that operating costs may be reported as a lump sum or as an advance payment. Advance payments for operating costs may only be agreed in a reasonable amount.
(3) Accounts for advance payments for operating costs are to be settled once per year; in this context, the principle of economic efficiency is to be observed. The lessee is to be notified of the settlement of accounts at the latest by the end of the twelfth month subsequent to the accounting period. After this period, assertion of a subsequent demand by the lessor is excluded unless the lessor is not responsible for the lateness of the assertion. The lessor is not obliged to provide interim settlements of accounts. The lessee is to raise any objections against the settlement of accounts with the lessor no later than by the end of the twelfth month following receipt of the settlement of accounts. After expiry of this period, objections may no longer be asserted unless the lessee is not responsible for the lateness of the assertion.
(3a) The lessee is to bear an optical fibre provision fee as defined in section 72 (1) of the Telecommunications Act (Telekommunikationsgesetz) only if the measure constitutes an economic application of this technology. Where the measure is complex as defined in section 72 (2) sentence 4 of the Telecommunications Act, the lessee is to bear the costs only if the lessor, prior to agreeing the provision of optical fibre, has obtained three proposals, insofar as possible, and has selected the most economical one.
(4) An agreement deviating to the disadvantage of the lessee from subsection (1), subsection (2) sentence 2, subsections (3) or (3a) is ineffective.