Individual billing
Heat and water meters are read remotely and continuously, and the individual statement builds itself through the year. Every line traces back to the reading that produced it, with its date and its source.
Individual billing of energy and water costs, often abbreviated DIFEE, allocates a building's heating and hot water costs according to what each dwelling actually consumed, rather than by a theoretical key such as floor area.
The cantons' model energy regulations, MoPEC, provide for it in new buildings and during major renovations. Thresholds, deadlines and exemptions are then a matter for each canton. So we cannot say from this page whether your building is concerned: the standard exists, and it is checked canton by canton.
The gap, on the other hand, is documented: in a building with central heating, consumption varies threefold between comparable dwellings, and by up to eight times for water (SFOE). Without individual billing, this gap is spread across everyone.
What individual billing does, and what it does not. It allocates the total invoiced to the building across the dwellings, based on measurements. It does not replace the energy supplier's metering, and we promise no equality with it.
Before ordering meters, send us the list of models, whatever the protocol. A meter can be fully compliant and still be unreadable for the platform, and the fault would only show at the first statement, a year after installation. We confirm in writing what we read.
That is the real question for a manager or an owner considering a change. Three situations, and they are not handled the same way.
When the item « heating costs, reading and statement » is already in the lease, its amount varies every year by nature: it depends on consumption and on the provider chosen.
This item covers meter reading and billing, not the rest of the Neolia operation. What you can charge to tenants must therefore be checked against the lease, service by service: nothing is automatic, and an invoice description is not enough.
If the building has never had individual billing, this item does not appear in the leases. Introducing it is treated as a rent increase, with the procedure and deadlines that go with it.
This is not an obstacle, it is a schedule: it can be prepared, and it is better known before installation than at the first statement.
Check three things in the contract with your current provider: the remaining term, the notice period, and whether the meters and heat cost allocators are rented or bought.
A rented meter fleet goes back to the provider at the end of the contract, which changes the whole calculation. We review it with you before quoting.
The legal framework, put exactly. The price owed to Neolia and the share you can charge to your tenants are two separate questions. A tenant only owes the ancillary costs expressly provided for in their lease, for costs actually incurred (Articles 257a and 257b of the Swiss Code of Obligations). Nothing is automatic, and an invoice description is not enough. Article 4 of our terms.
For each accounting year the platform keeps the allocation and the statement it issued, with the fingerprint of the calculation and a line-by-line link back to the meter readings and energy invoices behind it. Property management can therefore produce the supporting documents in the event of an audit or a dispute. The list of points to check before signing.
The connected building fee pays for the whole operation, with no split by service. Billing is part of it: meter reading, monitoring of the measuring devices, allocation and calculation of each share, and preparation of the statement. So are the intercom, the alerts and the residents' app, with no module to unlock.
The amount, what it includes and the equipment we cover are on the pricing page, the site's only source of prices.
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