Any experience with Außerordentliche Belastung?

honestly the zumutbare Belastung is the part most people miss, it's not a flat percentage. the Finanzamt calculates it based on your Gesamteinkommen and how many kids you have, and it goes up in steps. for a single person with no kids it's around 6% of your income, but if you're married or have dependents it can drop to 1-2%, which makes a big difference. so if you're in a partnership or have a Kind, make sure you file jointly if that's possible, it can push your refund way higher.

another thing nobody mentioned: if the dry rot was in the Gemeinschaftseigentum, the Hausgeld or the Rücklage might be able to cover part of it, but since you already paid, you can try to claim the whole 7800 as außergewöhnliche Belastung and then also deduct the Zinsen if you had to take a Kredit to pay it on time. the interest is not part of the außergewöhnliche Belastung, but it's deductible as Werbungskosten if you rent the place out, or as Sonderausgaben if you live there yourself. that's a small extra, but every 100€ counts.

also, don't forget the Anlage N if you're employed, because the Finanzamt sometimes wants to see your Lohnsteuerbescheinigung to verify the zumutbare

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I went through this with a Schimmel issue in my own Altbau a couple years back, and the biggest thing I learned is that the Finanzamt really wants to see that you exhausted every other option before calling it außergewöhnlich. So if you have any Versicherung that could cover part of it, even a Teilkasko on the building, get that denial in writing before you file. They've asked me for that before, and without it they get suspicious.

Also, don't forget that the 7800 is the gross amount. If you paid Mehrwertsteuer on the invoice, that part is not deductible as außergewöhnliche Belastung, it's only the net amount that counts. Most Handwerker bills will show it separately, so make sure you're claiming the right number. And if you had to take a Dispo or Kredit to cover it, the Zinsen are not part of this claim, but they can be deducted elsewhere, so keep those statements too.

One trick that helped me: file your Steuererklärung as early as possible, like right after January 1st. The Finanzamt processes these slower when they're buried under everyone else's returns, and if they have questions about your zumutbare Belastung calculation, you'll have months to respond without missing the deadline. It's not a huge difference, but it saves you the stress of chasing them in August.

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yeah i dealt with this exact thing last year, same situation with a wet rot in our dachstuhl. the trick is the Finanzamt treats it as außergewöhnliche Belastung only if it's really unavoidable and you can prove you had no choice. keep every rechnung from the Handwerker, plus the Gutachten if you got one. you claim it in the Anlage Sonderausgaben section, but honestly the key is the zumutbare Belastung, they subtract a chunk based on your income and family status before they even look at the rest. for me, single, no kids, around 3k net, they only counted like 60% of the 7k as deductible. so expect maybe 1500 to 2500 back depending on your Steuerklasse, not the full amount. also do it in the same year you paid, not when the invoice came, so if you paid in june 2023 that's the 2023 tax return. one more thing, if the hausverwaltung split it per owner, make sure you get the abtretungserklärung or a copy of the owner's meeting protocol, they sometimes ask for that as proof.

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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