Comment by noAnswer
16 hours ago
I sometimes wonder if I'm doing something wrong (as a German citizen). What are all this legal letters, people supposedly get all the time? Since I have "Briefankündigung" where I get a picture of the envelope via e-mail the night before it gets delivered I just checked all my mail of 2025. (Excluding Spam, not even 10 letters. The majority where RFID-card delivers.) I got the voting card for the 2025 Bundestag election and the car tax guys did sent me something because of a new car. Why the later didn't use Elster for that, I have no idea.
I give you that. Most organisations are paper first and you have to login and select "digital communication only" once.
I bought a house 2 years ago.
Any communication from water and garbage utilities is always in paper form. No option for digital in any way. When asked it was for "legal" reasons.
Property owner's insurance also sends their legal information and billing updates via letter.
Property tax updates and bills also come exclusively on paper. Even though they have my email and communicate non-billing and legal stuff over that.
I made an inquiry with local Bauamt about something and asked for email communication. The email I got said: "You've requested communication via email. So we're letting you know that we've sent a response to your question via letter.