Chimney sweeps: hand over unpaid sweeping fees easily

Why do sweeping fees so often go unpaid?

A single bill for sweeping and inspection is not a large amount. That is exactly why it gets left. A separate reminder run does not seem worthwhile, the customer lives in the same village, and at the next appointment you are standing at the same door again. So there is one reminder, perhaps a second, and at some point the amount is written off.

On top of that come the typical pitfalls of the trade: the property management company changes and the invoice ends up with the old one. A building is sold, and nobody feels responsible for the last sweep. A bill goes to the property address instead of to the owner, who lives elsewhere. Each case is small on its own. Over a year and a whole sweeping district, it adds up to a noticeable sum.

Much of this can be avoided when the bill is issued. For every new property, ask for the owner’s billing address, and for owners’ associations ask for the current property manager. State a clear payment term on the bill and announce that unpaid amounts will be handed over to a collection agency after a reminder. That is factual, not unfriendly, and it makes the later handover understandable for the customer.

Pull a list of all open items older than 30 days from your trade software, with property, invoice recipient and amount. That is the basis for everything else.

Sweeping duty and tariff: what is behind the sweeping fee?

The duty to have chimneys swept is regulated by each federal state in its own laws and regulations, for example the Vienna Fire Police Act 2015 with the Vienna Sweeping Regulation, the Lower Austria Fire Brigade Act 2015, the Styrian Sweeping Regulation 2018 or the Upper Austria Clean Air and Energy Technology Act 2002. The Trade Regulation Act (GewO) adds: for safety-relevant work, the state governor defines sweeping districts (Kehrgebiete), and chimney sweeps there must comply with the applicable maximum tariff.

The maximum tariffs are set out in state regulations, for example in the Vienna sweeping tariff, the Lower Austrian maximum tariffs for the chimney sweep trade, the Styrian sweeping tariff regulation 2018 or the Upper Austrian chimney sweep maximum tariff regulation 2017. They are maximum prices: you may charge less, but not more. Anyone who charges higher fees commits an administrative offence. Also check whether your state’s tariffs include VAT. The Vienna tariff includes it; the tariffs in Lower Austria, Styria and Upper Austria are net of VAT.

The legal nature matters for collection. The Austrian Supreme Court (OGH) speaks of a private-law sweeping contract, i.e. a contract for work, and of the chimney sweep’s contract price. You therefore send reminders for unpaid sweeping fees like for any other invoice, you can hand them over to a collection agency and, if necessary, pursue them with a payment-order claim (Mahnklage). There is one exception for the costs of the fire safety inspection (Feuerbeschau): in Lower Austria and Carinthia, the municipality sets them by official decision if the owner does not pay. These items do not belong in collection.

Itemise every invoice by tariff item and name the tariff regulation you are billing under. Then the customer can hardly dispute the amount.

Who has to pay: owner, property manager or tenant?

Your debtor is your client. Who must engage the chimney sweep is determined by state law, and it differs:

In a condominium, your contracting party for the common parts is the owners’ association (Eigentümergemeinschaft). It can enter into obligations and be sued. The property manager represents it externally but is not itself the debtor. So address the invoice and reminder to the owners’ association, care of the property manager. For the gas heating in an individual flat, on the other hand, its owner or operator is usually responsible.

In rented flats, the landlord may pass on the costs of regular chimney sweeping as operating costs under the Tenancy Act (MRG). This only concerns the relationship between landlord and tenant. Your debtor remains whoever engaged you.

You resolve two typical cases like this:

• The property manager changes. The debtor does not change, only the contact person. Send open invoices with the service date to the new property manager and ask them to forward them to the owners’ association.
• The building is sold. Clarify who was owner and client on the service date, and address the invoice and reminder to that person, not automatically to the new owner.

Which records do you need?

Sweeping fees are rarely disputed if the records are right. The federal states require you to keep records anyway: in Vienna you keep an inspection book (Kontrollbuch) for every building, in Lower Austria building files, inspection books or building lists, in Styria a sweeping book (Kehrbuch) is kept, and in Upper Austria you keep records of inspections and cleaning for five years. Use these records as proof of service.

For every open item you need:

• name and address of the client, not just the property address
• property and fireplace to which the service relates
• service date with proof from the inspection book, sweeping book or inspection confirmation
• invoice with tariff items and the tariff regulation applied
• payment term and your reminder with date and deadline
• correspondence with the customer or property manager, especially objections

For wasted journeys, it is worth checking your state tariff. In Lower Austria, if the appointment falls through due to the fault of the owner or person entitled to use, you may charge 16.74 euros per quarter hour or part thereof plus the official mileage allowance for the additional journey. In Upper Austria you may charge the additional costs against proof. The Vienna and Styrian tariffs have no separate item for this. Record the agreed appointment and the wasted visit in writing.

Example: 37 open items at year end

Example: a chimney sweep business in Lower Austria pulls its open items at the end of November. There are 37 bills totalling 4,212 euros.

If the business chased every item by phone itself and sent two reminders, 20 minutes per item would add up to more than twelve hours of office work. With the batch handover, it instead checks addresses and records once and hands over 29 items in one step. It resends the six owners’ association items correctly addressed and hands them over if the deadline passes. It resolves the two disputed cases itself. The two commercial businesses additionally owe a 40-euro lump sum each, 80 euros in total. These costs of default are borne by the late-paying customers, not by the business.

What else does the customer owe?

With private households, statutory late-payment interest is 4 per cent a year. The customer can only be required to reimburse reminder charges if they are at fault for the default and the costs are necessary and proportionate. The OGH has repeatedly struck down rigid flat fees per reminder. What you may specifically charge is shown in our guide Reminder fees: how much are you allowed to charge?.

If your customer is a business, such as a restaurant or commercial operation, the rate is 9.2 percentage points above the base rate, i.e. 10.73 per cent in the second half of 2026, plus a lump sum of 40 euros per claim. With small sweeping fees, the lump sum is often a considerable part of the amount.

The defaulting customer must reimburse collection costs insofar as they are necessary and proportionate. For collection agencies there are maximum rates set by regulation, tiered by the size of the claim. With small sweeping fees in particular, these amounts are correspondingly low.

Batch handover with no minimum volume: how it works at incaseof.law

incaseof.law is a licensed debt collection institute in Austria, registered in Germany. You hand over unpaid sweeping fees in the client portal: register, enter the debtor, amount and due date, upload the invoice and supporting documents. This works individually or in batches, with no minimum volume. For larger volumes there is a connector and a REST interface, and you receive the status back by webhook. Due, undisputed claims with documented payment default are accepted.

The case team decides on the reminder stages, and the tone stays factual. You no longer have to chase by phone yourself and stay out of the dispute with your neighbour. If the customer still does not pay, the case team recommends the next step. A payment-order claim is only filed after your approval; there are no automatic court filings. How the procedure works is explained in our guide to the payment-order claim in Austria.

100 % of the principal claim goes to your business; the defaulting customer bears the default costs within the legally permitted limits. In regular out-of-court collection there are no costs from incaseof.law, even if the debtor does not pay, and no success fee on your principal claim. Court fees and, in Austria, MANZ transmission fees only arise once you approve court proceedings. Recovery and duration are not guaranteed. Everything about handing over claims from your business, including directly from your trade software, is on our page on debt collection for chimney sweeps.

Keep limitation in mind: sweeping fees become time-barred three years after they fall due, and a reminder does not stop this period. Check your oldest items first. Monitoring limitation remains your responsibility; if limitation is imminent, point this out explicitly at handover. For the year-end closing, the year-end checklist for open receivables in Austria helps.