News

14 February 2025

The Ombudsman Institution sent a letter to the Minister of Energy Zhecho Stankov to inquire how the heating bills of customers in condominium buildings would be calculated from now onwards.

The inquiry was provoked by the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of 10 February 2025 that finally revoked the formula of the calculation of heat from building installations.

“The revoked provision concerns a particularly painful issue for heat consumers, namely: the measuring of the quantity of heating that the building installation gives off in condominium buildings. From a statement by the Ministry of Energy to the media, it is clear that the a option will be proposed to measure how much heat is emitted by the building installation to condominium buildings, before the new equalization bills for the heating season 2024/2025 are prepared. The question immediately arises here: how will the monthly heating bills for consumers be formed from now onwards,” writes the Secretary General of the Ombudsman Institution Dr. Aysun Avdjiev to Energy Minister Zhecho Stankov.

Dr. Avdjiev also points out that as per Art. 73, para 6 of the Regulation on Heat Supply: “The share distribution of heat energy for condominium buildings where customers have chosen to pay for the heating supplied and used according to the real monthly consumption, shall adhere to the procedure as set out in the Addendum to Art. 61, para 1, with a reporting period of one month.”

Dr. Avdjiev expressed his confidence that the new provisions about the measurement of the heating emitted by the building installation will be based solely on components that take into account objective indicators, in compliance with the rules of administrative procedure.