The Brandenburg building fee regulations violate the state constitution. This has now been determined by the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) of Berlin-Brandenburg (Ref.: 10 A 5.19 of 10 October 2024). Four districts in the state had filed an application for a review of the constitution, complaining that they had been assigned the tasks of the lower building supervisory authority, but that the fees were not sufficient to cover the costs incurred as a result. Their application was successful. In the opinion of the OVG, the fee regulations were not compatible with the connectivity requirement enshrined in the state constitution. According to this, the state is obliged to fully compensate for the costs of tasks that it transfers to the municipal level. According to the court, the principle of connectivity requires a careful and thorough cost forecast, utilising all available sources of information. The state of Brandenburg had failed to fulfil these requirements. For example, the increased personnel costs had not been sufficiently taken into account despite already known pay increases in the public sector, but only an average value for the years 2011 to 2014 had been used.

Contact persons for questions of municipal finance law in our practice are Rechtsanwalt Dr Dominik Lück and Rechtsanwalt Tobias Schröter.