Building a Tool that automates the audit of german commercial service charge agreements
Hey everyone,
I come from construction project management and corporate real estate consulting, and I've been building a process/tool for a few months now — would really appreciate honest, even critical feedback before I sink more time into it. I know there are already similar tools for residential leases, which is exactly why I'm focusing purely on the german commercial market.
Quick rundown of the problem: If your company rents commercial space (a store, a warehouse, an office), you get an annual service-charge statement (Nebenkostenabrechnung) from the landlord. In practice, these statements are often wrong: costs allocated incorrectly, calculation errors, line items that aren't even chargeable under the lease or the relevant statutory regulation. For a single location it barely matters, but for companies with 20, 50, 100+ leased sites, this quickly adds up to a five- to six-figure amount per year that nobody checks, simply because there's no internal time or capacity for it.
My idea is a system that automatically cross-checks the lease contract against the statement, against the operating-cost regulation, the heating-cost regulation, and German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) case law on the topic. The output is an audit report with concrete objections, plus a ready-to-send formal objection letter. Pricing: the first 1–2 statements as a free pilot, so nobody has to pay upfront just to see if it's worth it. If there's further interest, I'd charge a flat fee per statement or success based fee (im unsure, see question below).
I'm currently in the development phase. No paying customer yet. One pilot project is in the works. I've done some scattered cold outreach/validation with a few larger retail chains.Mixed picture, but leaning positive: some genuine interest, some polite declines.
I've also considered flipping the whole thing around. Not just auditing existing statements, but helping landlords create correct statements from the start. But I'm shelving that for now, so I don't lose focus.
Would love to hear your take, feel free to be critical:
- Do you think a pure success-fee model (20%, no fixed fee) is viable, or would you recommend a hybrid model instead?
- As a facility/real estate manager, would you actually trust an automated tool with a legal review like this?
- Would you offer this as a service, or as SaaS?
- Which sales channel would you prioritize next in my position? More cold outreach, content/LinkedIn?
Thanks. Looking forward to your feedback.