Tracking the amount of advances and reimbursements is a very important part of the work of the Committee, the Board and the management company.

Based on rising service prices and early communication, it is possible to prepare in advance and not deal with everything until the annual bill, when arrears can put you and your neighbours in a very difficult situation.
For example, in an HOA, the community decides how much to advance. When drawing up the budget, you need to look for rules which set out details beyond the law.

In order to be able to set the deposits correctly, we still need to know how the billing works.

Throughout the year, advances are paid each month and after the billing has been done, either an overpayment or an underpayment has been identified for a particular unit in the building. An underpayment occurs when less has been paid in advances than the amount of the costs determined by the billing.

The billing shall show the actual cost of the services broken down by the services provided. The total amount of monthly advances received must also be shown. The amount of any differences in the billing should be 'obvious and auditable'.

Services include, for example, the supply of heat and centralised hot water, the operation of the lift, the lighting of common areas in the house, the cleaning of common areas in the house, the supply of water and the disposal of waste water.

Finally, terms and deadlines:

the recipient of the services should receive the bill no later than 4 months after the end of the billing period, the new related regulations should contain an explicit provision that the due date of the arrears of service deposits is not affected by defects in the billing which do not lead to an incorrect determination of the amount of the arrears. The due date for payment of the overpayment or underpayment, as determined by law, must be no later than 4 months from the date of delivery of the bill to the recipient of the services. Thus, if the billing period is a calendar year, the homeowner in the case of an HOA receives the bill by the end of April and the overpayment or underpayment is due at the end of August.