8 years in Germany and I still dread the letterbox — so I built something to read my post for me
Two things this year finished me off: a tax registration and a re-registration, both landing as a stack of forms I had to read, sort, and work out what actually needed doing. My German is fine for the bakery and useless for a Finanzamt letter.
So I built myself a thing: photograph the letter, get it back in plain English — what it is, what it means, the deadline, and what to do next. I run everything through it now. A Mahnung I'd have panicked about turned out to be for 81 euros. A Nebenkostenabrechnung I'd have just paid turned out to be worth challenging.
It's rough and it's free while I work out whether it's any good — I'd honestly rather people tell me it's wrong than not use it. It does ten languages, not just English, because the problem isn't only mine.
Happy to answer anything about the letters themselves. I've read a lot of them by now.