GModG for Estate Agents: New Listing Rules, Handover and Fines from Entry into Force

Joost Jansky

Energieberater, Blogger

Note — cabinet draft, not yet binding law. Status: cabinet decision of 13 May 2026. Entry into force only after the Bundestag, Bundesrat and promulgation. Section references point to the cabinet draft; the likely wording is quoted below. For full detail, see the overview fact-check.

What changes for you as an estate agent

Three provisions are directly relevant to estate agents — and rebuilt to different depths:

§ 87 — new indicator in the listing, new absolute values in the certificate

The biggest substantive change is in the new § 87 GModG draft. The wording requires the following mandatory information in the listing:

1. whether the certificate was issued under § 81 (demand-based) or § 82 (consumption-based),
2. the date of issue, the annual primary energy demand in kWh/(m²·a), the energy efficiency class, the year of construction and the main heating energy sources.

This may sound like nitpicking, but it is an indicator switch. Today, § 87 (1) no. 2 GEG requires the final energy demand or final energy consumption in the property listing. From entry into force, the primary energy demand takes its place. That is a different metric: the final energy value is multiplied by the primary energy factor of the relevant energy source. The figure in the listing will, in many cases, be a different number — even though nothing has changed on the building. Changed primary energy factors reinforce the effect further.

Important distinction: Primary energy demand is already today on the certificate itself (§ 85 GEG, first page of a demand-based certificate). What is new is not that the figure exists — what is new is that it becomes the mandatory disclosure in the listing. Mixing this up in day-to-day operations means walking straight into the fine and warning-letter trap from entry into force: § 108 (1) no. 21 GModG draft directly references this listing obligation, and competitors or consumer associations check the listing text, not the certificate.

Final energy drops out of the listing — yet the A+ to H scale stays based on final energy. The list in § 87 GModG draft is closed; the final energy value is not included but replaced by primary energy demand, not supplemented. At the same time, the unchanged § 86 (2) GModG draft reads: "The energy efficiency classes according to Annex 10 result directly from final energy consumption or final energy demand." Going forward, the listing therefore shows the primary energy value, next to an efficiency class that derives from the no longer displayed final energy value. For heat-pump houses the primary energy value sits significantly above final energy (factor 1.5), for pellet heating significantly below (factor 0.7) — the kWh number in the listing no longer matches the colour scale intuitively. For non-residential buildings the picture is consistent (the new class under Annex 10a is based on primary energy); for residential buildings an inconsistency remains that the draft does not explain (the rationale for § 87 simply states "consequential adjustments"). Practical advice: where you want to explain your own listing text to buyers, add the final energy value voluntarily as a bracketed note — e.g. "Primary energy 152 kWh/(m²·a), final energy 95 kWh/(m²·a), class D". § 87 lists minimum disclosures; voluntary additional information is permitted.

In parallel, the content of the energy certificate itself changes. The new § 85 (1) no. 23 GModG draft adds "calculated primary energy in megawatt-hours and calculated annual final energy in megawatt-hours" to the mandatory information (implementing Annex V no. 2 a of the EU Buildings Directive (EU) 2024/1275). These are absolute annual figures in MWh — in addition to the existing specific values in kWh/(m²·a). These absolute MWh values are not part of the § 87 listing obligation and appear only on the certificate itself. In practice they are still relevant for estate agents: buyers use them to derive a direct heating-cost projection — those questions will come reliably once the law is in force.

The transitional rule is in § 112 (3) GModG draft: for energy certificates issued before entry into force (i.e. under old law), the current disclosure rules apply — final energy demand or consumption. In practice, your listing system needs to know two paths: the old-certificate path with the final energy value, the new-certificate path with the primary energy value.

§ 80 (4) and (5) — presentation and handover

While § 87 changes the disclosure in the listing, § 80 governs the obligations at the viewing and after the contract is signed. The structure stays the same, the wording becomes more precise. § 80 (4) GModG draft continues to name the estate agent expressly as a duty-bearer and requires:

• At the viewing at the latest: present the energy certificate or a copy to the prospective buyer — alternatively, display it clearly visibly or make it available.
• If there is no viewing: present it without undue delay; at the latest upon explicit request of the buyer.
• Without undue delay after the contract is signed: hand over the certificate or a copy.

For renting, leasing and their extension, § 80 (5) applies the same logic. As a result, GModG obligations bite into the estate agent's daily business more often than the old GEG — particularly with lease extensions, which many estate agents treat today as a routine without formal requirements.

Practice: presenting the certificate as a digital copy is not excluded by the wording — the draft mentions "original or copy" without prescribing a form. If you arrive at viewings with tablet and PDF, document this in the CRM with date, recipient and version status.

§ 108 — six offences, three of them hit estate agents directly

The new § 108 GModG draft lists six fine offences around the energy certificate. Three are directly relevant to estate agents:

• § 108 (1) no. 18: certificate or copy not presented, or presented incompletely or not in good time (§ 80 (4) sentence 1 or 4, also in conjunction with (5)).
• § 108 (1) no. 19: certificate or copy not handed over after the contract is signed, or handed over incompletely or not in good time (§ 80 (4) sentence 5, also in conjunction with (5)).
• § 108 (1) no. 21: listing disclosure under § 87 (1) not ensured.

Each of these offences carries a fine of up to €10,000 (§ 108 (2) no. 2 GModG draft). In the worst theoretical case with ten listings carrying the wrong disclosure: ten times €10,000, i.e. €100,000. In practice this is never exhausted — each individual listing is a separate offence under fine law, but the economically relevant sanction does not run through § 108. More on that immediately below.

The timeline: when does it get serious?

The GModG enters into force in four stages (Art. 9 GModG). For estate agents, only the first stage is really decisive:

The listing and handover obligations therefore apply on the day after promulgation — not six months later. The renaming to "Building Modernisation Act" follows for editorial reasons only in stage 2; during the transition, the act is still called GEG but already contains the new sections and fine offences.

For system planning: anyone wanting to publish a new listing between promulgation and stage 1 should have their CRM data routine ready for the new disclosure by then. Working assumption — if the Bundestag and Bundesrat approve in the 2026 summer or autumn session, promulgation would follow one or two weeks later. A realistic lead time for the adaptation: four to eight weeks from today. Longer if you depend on a portal or CRM vendor.

Risk reality: estate-agent liability runs through the UWG, not § 108

Ten thousand euros per offence sounds like robust enforcement. In practice, it rarely becomes a decision: Deutsche Umwelthilfe openly speaks of enforcement deficits in the handling of energy-certificate breaches. Where fines are imposed at all for listing breaches, they typically come in at the low three- to four-digit range.

The economically effective burden comes from another direction — and has been confirmed in law for years.

BGH and Regional Court Ingolstadt: market conduct rule

The Federal Court of Justice ruled back in 2017 that the mandatory disclosures regarding energy certificates in property listings are market conduct rules within the meaning of § 3a UWG (BGH, judgment of 5 October 2017 – I ZR 232/16). At that time, the estate agent was not directly named in the EnEV wording; the BGH derived the estate agent's duty from Article 12 of the EU Buildings Directive via § 5a UWG (withholding material information). In today's § 87 GEG and in § 87 GModG draft, the estate agent appears expressly in the norm — the actionability under § 3a UWG remains unaffected.

How current the line still is, is shown by the Regional Court Ingolstadt, final judgment of 2 June 2023: § 87 (1) GEG is a market conduct rule within the meaning of § 3a UWG. Mandatory disclosures appearing only in the exposé do not satisfy the requirement — the listing itself must contain them.

The Higher Regional Court Hamm also ruled on the estate-agent listing constellation (4 U 137/15), as did the Regional Court Kassel in the Deutsche Umwelthilfe case against an estate agent (2 O 71/15, judgment of 10 August 2015 — source: DUH).

Contractual penalty + warning costs as a calculable sanction

A UWG warning letter typically follows the same pattern:

• A cease-and-desist undertaking with contractual penalty — often €3,000 to €5,000 per breach.
• Reimbursement of warning costs — lawyer's fees or association flat fee, usually €300 to €1,000.
• Where breaches repeat after the undertaking is given: every further faulty listing triggers the contractual penalty.

A practical example: a regionally active estate agency lists 30 properties per quarter. Three listings are challenged, a cease-and-desist undertaking is given (€5,000 contractual penalty per breach). Six weeks later, another listing appears with the old disclosure, because a member of staff did not update the listing template. The bill: €5,000 contractual penalty, around €1,500 warning costs, plus internal hours in management and legal. Around €6,500 per missed listing is quickly added up — and the same breach can repeat week after week.

The opposing parties are rarely public authorities. Active here are competitors, qualified business associations, consumer organisations and, above all, Deutsche Umwelthilfe. Anyone publishing a lot of listings in a region knows this risk factor — or should.

Same house, different class: what you need to tell sellers

The energy efficiency scale for residential buildings stays at A+ to H (overview fact-check). The A-to-G scale from the EU Buildings Directive does not apply to residential buildings for the time being — contrary to some headlines.

What does change significantly are the primary energy factors in Annex 4 of the GModG draft:

Two worked examples make the effect tangible. A terraced house with a heat pump and a final energy demand of 40 kWh/(m²·a) appears in the new certificate with 60 kWh primary energy instead of the previous 72 — the class may improve. A comparable property with a pellet boiler and 130 kWh final energy demand slips from 26 to 91 kWh primary energy and can lose one or two efficiency steps, without anything having been changed on the building.

For you as an estate agent, that has two consequences:

1. You have old and new certificates in your portfolio in parallel. The listing must distinguish — final energy for certificates from the old law (§ 112 (3) GModG draft), primary energy for certificates issued after entry into force (§ 87 GModG draft). A mixed data routine is risky.
2. Certificates newly issued after entry into force show different figures than their predecessors. Sellers and buyers will ask why the class has shifted. Explain this before the first listing — not only on request.

Advertising with the "old" class when the new certificate already shows a different one is misleading under § 5 UWG — and therefore again actionable.

Four-point checklist for the seller conversation, as soon as the class has shifted after re-issuance:

• Explain the difference between final and primary energy in one sentence: "We multiply the final energy value by a statutory factor per fuel."
• Show the two values side by side — old certificate vs. new certificate — so the client can see the shift for themselves.
• Name the market effect honestly: heat-pump and direct-electric houses tend to be marketed better, pellet and wood-log houses worse — independent of the actual CO₂ footprint.
• Record the consultation in writing (an e-mail summary is enough), so you do not end up in a later discussion about the size of the estate-agent fee when the listing under the new law leads to a worse class.

How do you plan today?

Four steps, all implementable in two to four weeks — without software investment:

1. CRM stocktake

List your active mandates and check three fields per property:

• Is an energy performance certificate in place — demand-based or consumption-based?
• What is the expiry date? (Ten years from issuance — § 79 (3) GEG; structurally retained in the GModG draft.)
• Which certificate type would apply for a new issuance? For older small multi-family buildings, the GModG opens up the consumption-based certificate without the WSchV-1977 hurdle; the underlying data base of 24 monthly readings is, however, demanding.

2. Prepare listing templates for § 87

Mandatory fields in the listing system:

• Certificate type (demand-based or consumption-based per § 81 / § 82)
• Date of issue
• Primary energy demand (for certificates after entry into force) or final energy demand/consumption (for certificates from the old law, § 112 (3) GModG draft)
• Energy efficiency class (A+ to H)
• Year of construction
• Main heating energy sources

Validation: plausibility between the energy indicator and the class. A listing that simultaneously reads "class A" and "250 kWh/(m²·a)" has something wrong in the data routine — typically a mix-up between final and primary energy.

3. Handover digital — and documented

Capture two moments:

• Presentation at the viewing — date, recipient, format (printout / tablet / displayed notice).
• Handover after the contract is signed — date, format, where applicable an acknowledgement of receipt by the buyer / tenant.

Both as a CRM entry is enough as evidence in a dispute — and costs little time.

4. Seller outreach

Clients whose certificate expires between 2026 and 2028: approach them actively. Should the certificate still be re-issued under the old law, or directly under the new? Both have pros and cons (see Will energy certificates expire from May 2026?). For acquisition, that is an obvious advisory service — and an additional instruction.

Four-week roadmap

Outsourcing certificate issuance — the Energyausweis API for estate agents

Anyone who has to organise new or re-issued energy certificates regularly from 2026 needs either in-house energy consultants or a reliable external source. In-house consultants scale poorly: software licence for the DIN V 18599 calculation, training, liability — the unit cost per certificate stays high. Our overview article on the Energyausweis API provides the full comparison; here, only the estate-agent view.

Ordering under your own brand in the CRM

Instead of pointing sellers or landlords to a third-party provider for the certificate order, integrate the ordering flow into your own client process. The client does not leave your brand — and the customer contact stays with you.

Legally secure certificates without in-house consultants

Issuance is handled by certified energy consultants per DIN V 18599 — with the quality seal of the German Building Balance Quality Association and a registration number from the German Institute for Building Technology (DIBt) on every certificate. You do not need to licence software or train staff. The supplier works with well-known platforms such as Grundriss-Schmiede and is a reliable partner for property professionals.

Practical effect: per mandate you typically save 1 to 2 hours of your own work (data capture, consultant coordination, follow-up queries) at the same or lower unit cost structure.

GModG updates automatically

The new mandatory disclosures from § 87 (primary energy demand, date of issue) come back from the API in structured form — as JSON, ready to drop into your listing fields. If the Bundestag amends anything in the legislative process, the change reaches you via the API version without you having to adapt your own system.

Technically, the API works with bearer authentication, a test and a production environment, and interactive OpenAPI 3.1.2 documentation at energyausweis.de/api. API usage is free for partners; only the certificates themselves are billed via the standard product.

FAQ

What changes for me as an estate agent on the day after the GModG is promulgated? § 80 (4) (presentation and handover) and § 87 (listing disclosure) apply in their GModG wording; § 108 contains the new fine offences — three of them (nos. 18, 19, 21) hit estate agents directly with up to €10,000 per offence. The renaming "GEG → GModG" follows only six months later; until then the new sections are already legally in force.

Who is liable for a faulty listing — the owner or the estate agent? Both. § 87 (1) GModG draft names sellers, landlords and estate agents expressly where any of them is responsible for the publication. Under the UWG, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH, I ZR 232/16) has confirmed the estate agent's responsibility since 2017.

How high is the fine risk for an incorrect energy certificate entry in a listing? Formally up to €10,000 per offence (§ 108 (1) no. 21 in conjunction with (2) no. 2 GModG draft). In practice, fines under the current GEG were rare and usually three- to four-digit amounts. The economically more relevant risk are UWG warning letters — typical contractual penalties of €3,000 to €5,000 per breach plus warning costs.

Does the A+ to H class for residential buildings stay, or does the scale change? The scale stays nationally at A+ to H (overview fact-check). What changes is the indicator in the listing — primary energy demand instead of final energy demand (§ 87 GModG draft) — and the underlying primary energy factors (Annex 4). New certificates may therefore show shifted classes.

Does an energy certificate issued before entry into force remain valid? Yes, until its expiry date (ten years after issuance). For such certificates, the transitional rule in § 112 (3) GModG draft applies for the listing — the current disclosure (final energy) remains valid. Where a certificate is mandatory and none exists, a new one must be issued under the new law. More on this in Will energy certificates expire from May 2026?.

Can I outsource certificate issuance without giving up my brand? Yes — through an integration under your own brand into your CRM or estate-agent portal. Issuance is handled by an external partner with the DIN V 18599 quality seal, DIBt registration and certified energy consultants; the client experiences your brand end-to-end. Technical interface: Energyausweis API.

Conclusion: what to do as an estate agent before entry into force

Three steps make any estate agency GModG-ready — regardless of the exact date of promulgation:

When does outsourcing pay off? Rule of thumb: from five to ten new certificates per year, an external source pays for itself; from twenty onwards, direct API integration into the CRM or estate-agent portal becomes the obvious solution — lower unit cost, lower liability risk, the client stays end-to-end in your brand.

If you are considering an API integration, you can find the interactive documentation at energyausweis.de/api and send first requests against the test environment. For tailored package solutions — such as a direct CRM integration or ordering under your own brand in the estate-agent portal — we are happy to make time for a conversation.

For the legal detail, the overview fact-check on the cabinet draft remains your reference — from the table of contents of §§ 79–88 to Annex 4 (primary energy factors) and the entry-into-force logic in Article 9.

Legal notice. This article relates to the cabinet draft of the Building Modernisation Act of 13 May 2026. The Bundestag and Bundesrat may make changes before promulgation. Wording such as "proposed", "in the draft" and "after entry into force" is to be understood in that sense. Specific section numbers may differ slightly in the final statutory text.