Does a bed redesign belong on the garden care invoice?

Not in the same total. Under Sec. 1 BetrKV, operating costs are costs that arise on an ongoing basis; maintenance and repair are expressly excluded. A redesign or repair therefore goes into a block of its own or on a separate invoice. Whether the manager passes it on is their own decision.

What does the comparison value of 0.15 euros mean for our quote?

It is an average per square metre of floor space and month from the 2024 billing year (Deutscher Mieterbund), not a price. It helps the manager put a property’s garden care in context. A property with a lot of green and little floor space will be above it without the maintenance being too expensive.

Why should we show labour costs separately?

Because tenants can also claim the tax reduction under Sec. 35a EStG for parts of their service charges, and the share of labour costs must, as a rule, be determined separately from the details on the invoice (Federal Ministry of Finance). An “of which labour costs” line saves the manager a follow-up question.

What applies if the estate has a caretaker?

If the caretaker also does garden care, according to the German Tenants’ Association these items can as a rule no longer be billed separately. Agree in writing which work the caretaker does and which your business does, and state the division on the invoice as well.

Landscaping costs in service charges: what can be passed on

Q: What counts as garden care under the Operating Costs Ordinance?

Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV names the care of landscaped areas including the replacement of plants and shrubs, the care of playgrounds including the replacement of sand, and the care of yards, paths and driveways not open to public traffic. These four areas work well as the structure of the schedule of services and the invoice.

Q: By when does the manager need our annual invoice?

The law sets no deadline for your invoice. However, the manager has to send the statement to the tenant no later than the end of the twelfth month after the end of the billing period (Sec. 556(3) BGB). The earlier your invoice arrives, the more time they have for it; an annual invoice in January is a good sign.

Every spring, each property management company faces the same pile: last year’s invoices, which have to be turned into a service charge statement for every flat. More than 21 million households (Deutscher Mieterbund) receive such a statement every year. Garden care is a small line in it: on average 0.15 euros per square metre and month in the 2024 billing year (Deutscher Mieterbund), out of total service charges of 2.67 euros per square metre and month (Deutscher Mieterbund). Small does not mean unimportant, though. A maintenance invoice that the manager first has to take apart before it can be passed on costs them time, and that is exactly what they remember at the next tender. This article shows how a landscaping business can structure its invoice so that it follows the list in the German Operating Costs Ordinance (BetrKV), and how its own website can show this template before the first contract is awarded. It is not legal advice; it points to the wording of the regulations.

Key takeaways

Your maintenance invoice ends up in the service charge statement and, when documents are inspected, in front of the tenant. A structured invoice explains itself there; a lump sum is something the manager has to explain.
The schedule of services follows the list in Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV: landscaped areas, replacement of plants and shrubs, playground and sand, yards, paths and driveways.
New plantings, redesigns and repairs go into a block of their own. Operating costs arise on an ongoing basis; under Sec. 1 BetrKV, repair costs are expressly excluded.
The comparison value of 0.15 euros per square metre and month (Deutscher Mieterbund) refers to floor space. It helps to put costs in context; it is neither a price nor a benchmark for your quote.
A page for property managers shows the invoice template, and the form asks for floor space, number of units and billing year – details every manager knows without a site visit.

Why the invoice sells the contract

Property managers rarely award grounds maintenance on the strength of the nicest photo. They award it to the business whose work can later be billed cleanly. The reason is in the law: advance payments for operating costs have to be settled annually, observing the principle of cost efficiency, and the statement must reach the tenant no later than the end of the twelfth month after the end of the billing period (Sec. 556(3) BGB). Every invoice that feeds into this statement therefore has to be checked, split and booked within a fixed window.

There is a second reader many businesses forget: the tenant. On request, the landlord has to let the tenant inspect the documents on which the statement is based (Sec. 556(4) BGB). Your invoice may therefore lie on the table during such an inspection, in front of a tenant who wants to know why garden care went up compared with the previous year. If all it says is “garden maintenance, flat rate, annual amount”, the manager has to explain what is in it. If it is broken down by service, the invoice explains itself.

The pressure on this line is growing. Average operating costs rose by more than 6 per cent in the 2024 billing year compared with the previous year (Deutscher Mieterbund); the analysis is based on statements covering around 12.4 million square metres of rented residential space (Deutscher Mieterbund). When the total rises, managers and tenants look at every single item. A business that presents itself at this point as the one whose invoice never needs reworking has an argument that a slightly lower hourly rate does not easily outweigh. How to reach property managers as clients in the first place is covered in the article winning grounds maintenance contracts with property managers; this one is about the paperwork that comes after the contract.

What Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV counts as garden care

In Sec. 2, the Operating Costs Ordinance lists the types of cost that count as operating costs. For garden care it is a single sentence, and it is the best template for your schedule of services, because it is the sentence the manager works with. In the original German it reads:

die Kosten der Gartenpflege, hierzu gehören die Kosten der Pflege gärtnerisch angelegter Flächen einschließlich der Erneuerung von Pflanzen und Gehölzen, der Pflege von Spielplätzen einschließlich der Erneuerung von Sand und der Pflege von Plätzen, Zugängen und Zufahrten, die dem nicht öffentlichen Verkehr dienen;

Sec. 2 No. 10 Operating Costs Ordinance (BetrKV), original wording

In English: the costs of garden care, meaning the care of landscaped areas including the replacement of plants and shrubs, the care of playgrounds including the replacement of sand, and the care of yards, paths and driveways not open to public traffic. This sentence contains four areas of service. If you structure your schedule of services exactly along them, the manager receives an invoice whose items can be assigned to the ordinance without detours. The cards below translate the legal text into the work that actually comes up on a residential estate.

Landscaped areas

Mowing and scarifying the lawn, weeding and mulching beds, cutting hedges and shrubs, disposing of leaves and cuttings. This is the core of every maintenance contract and usually the largest item. The ordinance speaks of the care of these areas, so it means recurring work.

Replacement of plants and shrubs

Replacing failed shrubs, replanting perennials that have died, swapping out a dead hedge plant. The ordinance names replacement explicitly. In its explanation, the German Tenants’ Association also includes the re-laying of the lawn.

Playgrounds and sand

According to the wording, the care of the play area and the replacement of sand are part of garden care. The safety inspection of the play equipment is a separate service and is better placed on a separate line.

Yards, paths and driveways

Paths, courtyards and driveways that are not open to public traffic: keeping joints clear, removing moss and weed growth, clearing leaves. The qualifier matters, because under this wording the public pavement in front of the property is not part of garden care.

Two of these areas have articles of their own: how to offer playground inspections as a separate service and how to describe weed control on paths and paved areas in terms of law and method. Both services come up regularly in maintenance contracts for residential estates, and both should appear on the invoice under the area they belong to.

A pointer, not legal advice

Whether an item may be passed on in the service charge statement is decided by the manager and, in a dispute, by a court, not by the maintenance business. Your job is an invoice that makes this decision possible. Say so on your website, too: a business that promises “fully rechargeable maintenance” is making a commitment it cannot keep on its own.

Ongoing or one-off: drawing the line on the invoice

The second template is one provision earlier. Under Sec. 1(1) BetrKV, operating costs are the costs that arise for the owner on an ongoing basis through ownership of the land or through the intended use of the building and the land. Sec. 1(2) BetrKV expressly excludes maintenance and repair costs, meaning costs that have to be incurred to remedy defects caused by wear, ageing and weathering.

For landscaping this means: mowing the lawn in May recurs every year and arises on an ongoing basis. Redesigning a bed, repairing a sunken paved area or fitting a new edging at the playground happens once. Anyone who bills both in a single total forces the manager to split the invoice themselves, or to play it safe and not pass on the amount at all. The table shows typical jobs and where they belong on the invoice.

Job	Reference in the wording	Place on the invoice
Mowing, hedge cutting, clearing leaves	Care of landscaped areas (Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV)	Block A, routine maintenance
Replacing a failed shrub	Replacement of plants and shrubs (Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV)	Block A, own line with quantity
Replacing the sand in the sandpit	Replacement of sand (Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV)	Block A, own line with volume
Joints and weed growth on driveway and yard	Yards, paths and driveways (Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV)	Block A, routine maintenance
Laying out or redesigning a bed	not mentioned, one-off measure	Block B, own item or invoice
Repairing a sunken paved area	Repair (Sec. 1(2) BetrKV)	Block B, not mixed with maintenance
Storm damage: felling and removing a tree	not expressly mentioned in No. 10	own invoice stating cause and date
Clearing and gritting snow	not part of No. 10	own contract, own invoice

The last two rows deserve particular attention. Winter maintenance is a business of its own with its own contract; how to set it up is covered in the article offering winter maintenance as a service. And anything commissioned additionally during the year should be recorded in writing as a variation before it appears on the invoice. How to do that without disputes is shown in the article handling variations properly. Felling a tree after a storm is like any other one-off job: the manager decides where to book the costs. Your invoice should not take that decision away from them, but make it possible.

Estates with a caretaker are a special case. For the caretaker, the German Tenants’ Association reports two averages: 0.37 euros per square metre and month where building cleaning, garden care or winter service are not billed separately, and 0.21 euros where they are billed separately (Deutscher Mieterbund). The reason: if the caretaker is also responsible for garden care, according to the association these items can as a rule no longer be billed separately. For your quote, this means clarifying exactly which work the caretaker does and which your business does. Write the division into the contract and repeat it on the invoice so that no work appears twice in the statement.

Structuring the invoice along the ordinance

Both templates together give an invoice with two blocks. Block A contains only what follows the list in Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV, broken down into the four areas. Block B contains everything commissioned separately. This is what it looks like as a template, with placeholders instead of amounts:

invoice-garden-maintenance-template.txt

Invoice no. [number]                       Invoice date: [date]
Property: [street, number, town]           Accounting unit: [reference]
Service period: 1 January [year] to 31 December [year]
Basis: maintenance contract dated [date]

A  Routine garden maintenance (services under Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV)
A1 Care of landscaped areas
   Lawn [m²], [number] cuts; hedges [running m], [number] cuts;
   beds [m²], [number] care visits; leaves and cuttings disposed of   [amount]
A2 Replacement of plants and shrubs
   [quantity] shrubs [species] replaced on [date]                     [amount]
A3 Playground: care of the area, sand replaced [m³]                   [amount]
A4 Yards, paths, driveways (not open to public traffic)
   Joints and weed growth [m²], [number] rounds                       [amount]
   Subtotal A net                                                     [amount]
   of which labour costs net                                          [amount]
   of which materials, machinery, disposal net                        [amount]

B  Separately commissioned work (not part of the maintenance contract)
B1 New bed laid out at the entrance, order dated [date]               [amount]
B2 Paving in the courtyard repaired, order dated [date]               [amount]
   Subtotal B net                                                     [amount]

   Total net A + B                                                    [amount]
   VAT [rate]                                                         [amount]
   Invoice amount gross                                               [amount]

Attachment: service record with visit dates and areas per section

The template has three properties that matter. First, the legal provision is in the heading of block A, so the manager does not have to guess which cost type the total belongs to. Second, the quantities are in the line: square metres, running metres, number of cuts. Anyone asking during an inspection why maintenance became more expensive finds the answer in a line showing an extra care visit, not in a lump sum. Third, labour costs are shown separately in block A; the section on tenants further down explains why.

Service period equals billing year: If the manager bills by calendar year, your annual invoice should run from 1 January to 31 December as well. An invoice from April to March has to be split across two statements.
One property per invoice: If the manager looks after several estates, they need a separate invoice, or at least a separate block, for each accounting unit. Otherwise they have to split a collective invoice for all properties by hand.
Service record as an attachment: Visit dates and areas worked per section, brief and dated. The record answers questions before they are asked.
Invoicing early: The annual invoice in January rather than in summer leaves the manager time for their own deadline. Invoicing on time makes a good impression.
Same structure every year: Managers compare year on year. If block A is always structured the same way, changes can be traced line by line.

If you anticipate this structure in the quote, you sell it along with the job. A quote whose items later appear on the invoice in exactly the same form is easier to compare and easier to accept. How such a quote is built is described in the article a quote that gets accepted.

Putting the 0.15-euro comparison value in context

The service charge index of the German Tenants’ Association gives an average of 0.15 euros per square metre and month for garden care in the 2024 billing year (Deutscher Mieterbund). Over a year, that is 1.80 euros per square metre (own calculation from the association’s monthly value). This figure comes up in conversations with managers, and it is easily misunderstood. The square metre refers to floor space, not green space: the analysis is based on rented residential space, and under Sec. 556a(1) BGB, unless the parties have agreed otherwise, operating costs are apportioned according to the share of floor space.

An estate with a large garden and few flats will therefore be well above the average per square metre of floor space, and a densely built estate with a narrow strip of green well below it. The value says nothing about the price of your service. It answers a different question: how garden care appears in this property’s statement compared with others. That is the question the manager asks, and this is how they calculate it:

Take the annual amount for garden care from block A, meaning only the routine maintenance total without block B.
Divide it by the total floor space of the property that the manager also uses for apportionment.
Divide by twelve to arrive at the monthly value per square metre.
Place the result next to the comparison value of 0.15 euros, as orientation and not as a benchmark.

The association itself says what its index cannot do: it cannot be used to carry out binding checks of statements or of individual cost levels (Deutscher Mieterbund). In other words, the index permits no binding checks, and that is the right attitude for you in the conversation too. If a property’s figure is above average, there is usually a visible reason: a lot of area, a lot of hedge, a playground. Your service record supplies the reason, not a justification after the fact.

Context, not a price promise

On your website, only mention the comparison value together with its source and reference unit, and never as the price of your own service. Anyone who uses it as a starting price relates it to an area they do not even maintain and raises an expectation that no property with a real garden will meet. How to handle real price information is described in the article showing prices on your website.

The tenants read along

In the end, the tenant pays for garden care, and has two reasons to read your invoice closely. You already know the first: the right to inspect the documents (Sec. 556(4) BGB). The second is about tax. The tenant of a flat can also claim the tax reduction under Sec. 35a EStG if their service charges include amounts for household-related services or tradesman services (Federal Ministry of Finance, guidance letter on Sec. 35a EStG, margin number 27).

Only labour costs qualify, and the guidance letter requires that their share can, as a rule, be determined separately from the details on the invoice (Federal Ministry of Finance). That is exactly what the “of which labour costs” line in the template is for. The manager can pass the amount on to the tenants without having to ask you. What showing labour costs looks like on an invoice for private clients is described in the article Section 35a tax relief: labour costs on the invoice. For property management, the same idea applies one step further: your breakdown ends up in many tax returns.

Breakdown yes, tax advice no

Whether, and to what extent, a tenant receives the reduction depends on their own tax return. Your contribution is a clean breakdown on the invoice, not a statement about the tax effect. Word it just as carefully on your website.

A page for property managers on your website

Everything so far is invoicing work. It only becomes a sales argument once a manager sees it before hiring you. For that, the website needs a page expressly aimed at property managers, housing companies and landlords. The private garden owner is looking for pictures and a contact person; the estate officer at a management company is looking for scope of services, records and a route to a comparable quote. A page for both answers neither question well. Four sections carry such a page:

Step 1

What we maintain

The four areas from Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV as the structure of your services: areas, replacement of plants, playground, paths and driveways. Plus one sentence on what is expressly not part of the maintenance contract and is offered separately.

Such a page does not have to be long, but it has to be specific. How a grounds maintenance service page is built overall, and what it shows managers and private clients respectively, can be seen on our page website for grounds maintenance businesses. How to offer maintenance contracts with scope and rhythm on your website is covered in the article offering garden maintenance contracts.

Template invoice without client data

Show the template with placeholders and without a real address. A redacted real invoice may feel more tangible, but it often gives away more than it should: street names, areas, maintenance rhythm. The manager who hires you does not want to find their properties on a contractor’s website.

The form asks what the manager already knows

The enquiry form on this page has a simple job: it collects the details you need for a comparable quote and only asks what a manager can answer without a site visit. Three fields carry the weight, two more help to draw the line.

Property and number of units: Address or name of the accounting unit and the number of flats. This gives the size of the estate and the number of entrances.
Total floor space: The area the manager uses for apportionment. With it, you and the manager can calculate the later monthly value per square metre and place it next to the comparison value.
Billing year and billing period: Calendar year or a different period. You align the service period and invoice date with it.
Rough green areas: Lawn, beds, hedges, paved areas, each estimated in square metres or running metres, ideally with a site plan attached.
Caretaker on site: Yes or no, and if yes, which work they do. This field prevents services from being offered twice.

These fields are not chosen at random. Each of them reappears later on your invoice or in the manager’s statement. How a form qualifies enquiries without putting people off is described in the article an enquiry form that qualifies. You will find a ready-made example for landscaping in our enquiry form for landscaping businesses.

Common mistakes on maintenance invoices

Lump sum without breakdown

“Garden maintenance as per contract, annual flat rate” leaves the manager guessing. Just four lines following the areas of Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV make the invoice verifiable.

Maintenance and redesign in one total

A new planting hidden in the maintenance total forces the manager to split the whole invoice or, in case of doubt, not to pass it on.

Period out of step with the billing year

An invoice from July to June has to be split across two statements. The service period follows the manager’s billing year.

No labour costs shown

Without the breakdown, the manager cannot give tenants a share for Sec. 35a EStG and has to ask you.

Caretaker work billed twice

If the caretaker mows the lawn and your business does too, two invoices for the same work end up in the statement. The division belongs in the contract.

Invoice in late summer

Sending the annual invoice only in August leaves the manager little time for their own statement, and you are remembered as the one who was late.

Two further points relate to plant choice and the duty of care. Choosing species that tolerate heat and drought when replacing plants can reduce the number of losses and with it the replacement line on future invoices; which plants are suitable is described in the article drought-tolerant planting as a garden service. And anyone who looks after trees on a residential estate will sooner or later be asked about tree inspections: a service of its own with its own documentation, as the article offering tree inspections and explaining the duty of care shows.

What the manager ends up holding

In the end, the manager has an invoice they can book without asking questions: block A with the legal provision in the heading and quantities in every line, block B kept apart next to it, labour costs shown, service period equal to the billing year. They have a service record for inspections and a key figure they can compare with the association’s average without turning it into a price. And they saw all of this on your website before requesting the first quote. That is not a legal trick, just orderly office work you can show, and it speaks for you at the next tender.

Sources and Studies

This article is based on data from the Deutscher Mieterbund (German Tenants’ Association; service charge index for the 2024 billing year, published on 18 December 2025). The legal notes draw on the Operating Costs Ordinance (Sec. 1 and Sec. 2 No. 10 BetrKV), the German Civil Code (Sec. 556 and Sec. 556a BGB) and the guidance letter of the Federal Ministry of Finance on Sec. 35a EStG dated 9 November 2016. They are general in nature and do not replace an assessment of the individual case by a lawyer or tax adviser.