The Zertifizierter Verwalter exam is the certification test for property managers in Germany under § 26a of the Wohnungseigentumsgesetz (WEG). The regulation behind it, the ZertVerwV, is short, which is often mistaken for leaving everything to the chambers. It fixes more than that: a minimum duration, a pass mark, and the structure of both exam parts. Here is exactly what is fixed and what is genuinely left open.
How many questions are on the exam?
There is no fixed nationwide question count. The ZertVerwV never states a number of questions for the written part. What it does fix is a 90-minute minimum duration under § 3 Absatz 2. Beyond that floor, § 6 Absatz 3 leaves the details of the exam procedure, including how many questions are set, to the Industrie- und Handelskammern by Satzung. Two chambers can run written exams of different lengths and question counts and both comply with the same regulation. What they cannot vary is the pass mark, which § 5 Absatz 2 fixes, or the 90-minute floor.
What score do you need to pass?
At least 50 percent in every Themenbereich, and not 50 percent overall. This one is fixed nationwide, and § 5 Absatz 2 says so directly: the written part is passed “wenn der Prüfling in allen Themenbereichen, auf die sich die Prüfung erstreckt, jeweils mindestens 50 Prozent der erreichbaren Punkte erzielt.” The word carrying the weight is jeweils, in each one. Strong technical knowledge does not compensate for a weak commercial section.
The same Absatz gives the oral part its own 50 percent threshold, and requires both parts to be rated “bestanden” before the exam as a whole is passed. So a chamber choosing a longer paper or more questions is varying the format around a threshold it does not get to move.
What does the written exam cover?
Everything in Anlage 1. That is a deliberate contrast with some of the related Sachkundeprüfungen: for §34f/§34h and §34i, one subject area is carved out as practical-only and excluded from the written part. Here, § 3 Absatz 2 states the written part covers everything listed in § 1, which points at the whole of Anlage 1. No Themenbereich is excluded, so all 38 leaf items across the syllabus’s four subject areas are fair game for the written exam.
§ 1 does set the depth differently, and it is the one place the four areas are not treated alike: the legal, commercial and technical Themenbereiche (Nummern 2, 3 and 4) require vertiefte Kenntnisse, in-depth knowledge, while the property-industry fundamentals (Nummer 1) require only Grundkenntnisse. Depth, not exclusion, and the 50 percent threshold applies to each of them the same way.
What four subject areas are tested?
Anlage 1 groups the syllabus into four Themenbereiche:
- Grundlagen der Immobilienwirtschaft: building plans and construction drawings, insurance types relevant to property, and environmental and energy topics.
- Das einschlägige Recht: centred on the Wohnungseigentumsgesetz itself, covering how residential and part-ownership is created, declarations of division, the rights and duties of owners and the manager, and owners’ meetings, alongside other relevant statutes including the BGB, land-registry law, civil procedure, and the manager’s professional-conduct rules.
- Kaufmännische Grundlagen: proper bookkeeping, accounting, special levies and the maintenance reserve, the annual statement and budget, and service-charge and dunning procedure.
- Technische Grundlagen: building materials, building services, recognising defects, duty-of-care obligations, maintenance planning, energy-efficient renovation, and barrier-free conversions.
The second Themenbereich is the largest by far, 21 of the syllabus’s 38 leaf items, so a candidate revising it benefits from treating the Wohnungseigentumsgesetz itself as its own block within that area rather than one undifferentiated mass of statute law.
Is there an oral part too?
Yes, and it targets one statute specifically. Under § 3 Absatz 1 ZertVerwV the exam has a written and an oral part. The oral part runs at least 15 minutes per candidate and, under § 3 Absatz 3, covers at least Nummer 2.1 of Anlage 1, which is the Wohnungseigentumsgesetz itself. That makes the WEG worth drilling on its own even for a candidate who has the rest of the written syllabus covered.
Who is exempt from sitting the exam?
Several groups already qualify without it. § 7 ZertVerwV treats fully qualified lawyers, trained Immobilienkaufleute, certified Immobilienfachwirte, and graduates holding a property-related degree, among others, as equivalent to a certified manager. They may use the title without ever sitting the Zertifizierter Verwalter examination.
Every fact above comes directly from the Zertifizierter-Verwalter-Prüfungsverordnung, freely available at gesetze-im-internet.de together with the statutes its syllabus draws on. RiverMap Learning’s Zertifizierter Verwalter practice app drills all four subject areas of Anlage 1 with original questions, each citing the specific provision behind its answer, and its own 30 question mock is disclosed as the app’s own practice setting rather than a reproduction of any chamber’s written exam.