Maintenance reserve - mandatory? From what age of the house?

Hello, I intend to buy a four-year-old apartment. I have requested the utility bill, but there is no maintenance reserve listed. After inquiry, apparently everything remaining from the house fee (3€ per sqm) simply flows into the reserve account. There also seems to be no agreement from the owners' association about this so far; the house fee was only raised from 2€ to 3€ per sqm. As far as I know, it is legally regulated that an owners' association must build a maintenance reserve – or does this only apply from a certain age of the building? I could hardly find anything about this online... always just the standard information with "at least 7.10€ per sqm per year" and other recommendations. Thanks in advance for your advice!

As far as I know, it is legally regulated that an owners' association must build up a reserve fund for maintenance

You are misinformed. A reserve fund for maintenance is not mandatory. It must be decided by majority vote (provided there are no regulations in the declaration of division or community rules), but it can also be abolished by majority vote. In the case of an almost new building, you can do without it for a few years or start very small, since costs usually only arise for the community much later.

no obligation and very sensible. What is contained in the reserve overall?

The service charge is consumption-dependent and is immediately spent again on water, heating, etc. The reserve fund is always stated separately on the statement. However, to spend any of it, the administrator requires a resolution from the community.

How large is the community of owners? Is it managed by a professional administrator or does one of the owners handle it on the side? A WEG without maintenance reserves would be a clear warning signal for me, even with relatively new apartments. At some point, you have to start with the reserves, and better early than late. Who knows which co-owner has calculated their loan so tightly that the introduction of a reserve fund causes them as much trouble as a broken heating system after 10 years divided by 3? In the end, those with reserves will be the ones stuck having to collect the money for the new heating system from the third party.

Thank you for your answers.

The community comprises four parties, none of the apartments are rented out. Management is external by a management company. I have also seen the statement, but there is no maintenance reserve listed.

After inquiry, as I wrote above, I only received the answer that the service charge was increased once and now everything left over flows into the reserve. But in my opinion, this must also be recorded and shown somewhere?!

As I said, the building was first occupied in early 2018. What do you think?