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On July 16, 2024, the Court of Appeal ruled in the appeal procedure between Municipal Heating Foundation Eindhoven and energy company Ennatuurlijk regarding the annual connection fee.

Ruling
According to the Court of Appeal, the annual connection fee was not agreed with residents. Ennatuurlijk wrongly charged these costs to residents for years. Ennatuurlijk is also not allowed to charge the costs in the future. With this judgment, the Court of Appeal follows the earlier ruling of the District Court on January 26, 2022. This is good news for many users of municipal heating in Eindhoven. You can read the ruling on Rechtspraak.nl.

What is the dispute about?
Ennatuurlijk charges most households in Eindhoven with municipal heating for 30 years an interest-bearing and also indexed ‘connection fee’. After a term of 30 years, this sums up to an amount of approximately 5000 euros per household. This is in addition to the connection costs that residents have already paid to have their homes connected to the heat network. The first owners of a self-built home paid the connection costs at the time directly to Ennatuurlijk or its legal predecessors (Essent, NRE, PNEM, ECM). For project homes, the connection costs were included in the purchase price of the house and the project developer paid the connection costs directly to (the legal predecessor of) Ennatuurlijk. In our opinion, the annual connection fee has not been agreed with the residents.

Who does the ruling apply to?
The ruling of the Court of Appeal applies to most current and former customers of Ennatuurlijk who have paid an annual connection fee. However, there are three situations where the ruling does not apply:

1. Owners or tenants who in 2016 or later accepted Ennatuurlijk’s offer to reduce the annual connection fee to zero euros over three years. By signing a so-called settlement agreement, these residents waived their right to reclaim the annual connection fees already paid.
2. First owners of a self-built home who signed a settlement agreement in 2019 or later, whether or not on our advice. They have already received back the annual connection fees and no longer pay an annual connection fee. This was the result of three pilot procedures initiated on our initiative in 2012 and completed in 2018.
3. Owners or tenants who entered into an agreement with Ennatuurlijk on January 1, 2014 or later. As of January 1, 2014, the Heat Act came into force. Since then, Ennatuurlijk has not charged an annual connection fee for new connections, or this connection fee has been explicitly stated in the delivery contract.

Cassation
The ruling is binding unless one of the parties files an appeal in cassation with the Supreme Court within three months and the ruling of the Court of Appeal is overruled by the Supreme Court. Ennatuurlijk appealed the ruling of the Court of Appeal in cassation on November 16, 2024. The Supreme Court exclusively determines whether the law has been correctly applied and/or whether the reasoning is substantively correct. The substance of the case is therefore no longer examined. If it turns out that the Court of Appeal has not applied the law correctly, the cassation judge may set aside the judgment and refer the case to a judge for a new hearing for substantive treatment. In most cases, however, the court’s decision is upheld.

Collective action
SSE has been campaigning since 2015 against unjustified costs for municipal heating, including the annual connection fee, the high heating tariffs and the rental of the delivery set. In order to take decisive action and pay the costs of legal proceedings, the foundation started a collective action in 2018. The court has now ruled on the annual connection fee. The other points of dispute are still open. Residents can still join the collective.