Under § 28(5) of the Language Act, the authority may propose to the employer to terminate the employment contract if the employee does not know the Estonian language at the required level.
The news focuses on the situation resulting from the amendment of the Language Act for employers and employees. The amendment to the Language Act, in force as of 19.07.2026, strengthens the enforcement of language proficiency requirements and grants the authority new measures against an employee who does not meet the requirements. The legal question is resolved on the basis of § 23 of the Language Act and the Government of the Republic Regulation "Requirements for the proficiency in and use of the Estonian language by officials, employees and self-employed persons".
Under § 23(1) of the Language Act, employees must know and use the Estonian language at the level necessary for the performance of service duties or work tasks. Subsection 2 extends the requirement to employees of a company, non-profit association and foundation, as well as to a self-employed person, where this is justified in the public interest. The levels are established on the basis of the European framework for language learning (§ 23(3)); the specific requirement is established by the Government of the Republic by regulation (§ 23(4)), taking into account the nature of the work and the language use situation (§ 23(4¹)). Under § 2(3) of the Regulation, the employer is obliged to ensure that employees with the required level of language proficiency actually possess that level. The employer is entitled to establish a higher requirement, but not above level C1 (§ 2(4) of the Regulation, last sentence). The requirements are not applied for a temporary period of up to five years to a foreigner who is staying here, in certain cases, for example, as a top specialist or as an academic teaching a foreign language (Language Act § 23(5)). The Regulation divides the requirements by level:
In the event of a breach of the requirements, under § 28(5) of the Language Act, the authority has the right to propose to the employer to terminate the employment contract with the employee or to dismiss an official from office, as well as to send the employee to a language proficiency examination.
In practice, this is significant for all employers in fields requiring language use: before the authority intervenes, compliance with the language proficiency requirements must be verified independently, as the employer is responsible for ensuring compliance with the requirements. For an employee, non-compliance with the requirements entails the risk that the authority will propose termination of the employment contract or direct the employee to a language proficiency examination.
On what grounds may a school owner (a local government or the owner of a private school) refuse to grant a teacher a career stage — the senior teacher or master teacher position — by citing a lack of funds, and who decides the number of higher-level positions in a school.
The underlying material does not set out a specific norm, so I rely on the general principle of law also reflected in the ministry's position reported in the news: the granting of career stages is based on demonstrated competence and must not depend on the school's financial situation, because the state's salary support is not linked to the actual number of senior and master teachers in a school. From this principle follows the rule that where a teacher meets the conditions of the career model, the school owner is under an obligation to ensure the necessary position and the higher salary floor, irrespective of the funding source.
A teacher whose career stage has arisen on the basis of competence can argue that the school owner's lack of funds is not a legal ground for withholding the position — this argument is now significantly stronger with the support of the ministry's position than the school owner's reference to the budget. For the school head and the owner, the risk is the reverse: if there turn out to be more senior and master teachers than expected, the money must be found as a mandatory expenditure rather than a saving, so budgeting should already take this obligation into account when planning positions. A separate point of dispute is the division of authority over deciding the number of positions between the school head and the school owner — the Association of Estonian Cities and Municipalities' proposal to leave this to the school head's discretion indicates that the boundary of competence remains unresolved in practice, and dispute over it is to be expected.
It is worth monitoring whether the ministry clarifies the link between salary support and the obligation at the level of a regulation or guideline, since the current written position is not yet secured by a legal act.
Under § 45(3) of the Apartment Ownership and Apartment Associations Act, an apartment owner may, within two weeks of the board's refusal, file an application with the court to compel the board to provide the information.
If an apartment owner has not notified the association of the postal address of their residence, the association has the right to deem their place of residence to be the location of the apartment ownership (§ 46(3)).
The legal position of an apartment purchaser depends primarily on the information they can request from the apartment association before the transaction, because future renovation costs burden the buyer precisely through the association's decisions. The core of the news item is that low utility costs do not reflect the association's impending loan obligations, which makes the buyer's right to obtain information decisive. Section 45(1) of the Apartment Ownership and Apartment Associations Act grants an apartment owner the right to receive information from the board about the association's activities and to review the association's documents, including the right to request electronic extracts to the e-mail address notified pursuant to § 46(1) (§ 45(1¹)). In turn, the apartment owner is obliged to notify the association of their contact details and the postal address of their residence (§ 46(1)–(2)); otherwise, their place of residence is deemed to be the location of the apartment ownership (§ 46(3)).
In the buyer's interest, it is essential to establish before the transaction the association's loan obligations, planned works, and the existence of debtors, as these determine future operating costs. If the apartment ownership is encumbered by a limited real right, the right to information under § 47 also belongs to the holder of the limited real right, who may ask about the amount of arrears in operating costs and the grounds on which they arose. The amount of the association's lien is determined on the basis of the annual financial report, or, in the absence of a report, the financial plan, and the agreement on the separate property may also assign a specific monetary amount to the lien — this directly affects the obligations assumed by the buyer. The board may refuse to provide information only if there is reason to presume significant damage to the legitimate interests of another apartment owner or a third party (§ 45(2)); therefore, information concerning the association's financial situation is, as a rule, to be disclosed. When arranging planned major works, the qualifications of the technical consultant are also important: under the conditions for supporting the reconstruction of apartment buildings, the consultant must, for example, hold a Level 4 apartment association manager qualification, a Level 4 or Level 5 real estate manager qualification, or a Level 8 authorised construction engineer qualification, and must demonstrate compliance when submitting a bid. The sources provided do not contain case law.
In practice, this means that a buyer who does not request information bears the risk that, after the transfer of ownership, the association will take out a renovation loan and their monthly costs will increase without the transaction price reflecting this. At the level of the seller and the broker, it is important that questions about the association's loans, debtors, and upcoming works be submitted in writing, because answers contained in documents can later be proven.
If the taxable person has not paid the interest, the tax authority presents an interest claim indicating the number of days in delay, the interest rate, the interest amount payable, and the payment deadline.
The interest rate provided for in §§ 115 and 116 of this Act is 0.06 per cent per day.
What exposes the undertaking in this analysis is not the conclusions reached during the advisory procedure, but a subsequent decision of the tax authority: a person advised by the Tax and Customs Board (MTA) was nevertheless subjected to an interest claim on VAT. The legal question is whether tax authority advice precludes a subsequent interest claim — the answer is provided by the Taxation Act. Monetary claims and obligations arise under § 31 of the Taxation Act (MKLS), including the taxable person's obligation to pay the tax amount (subsec. 1) and, alongside it, the taxable person's ancillary obligation to pay interest (subsec. 5). Claims and obligations arise upon the occurrence of the conditions prescribed by law without an administrative act, unless the law requires an administrative act (MKLS § 31(2)). An interest claim may be presented in a tax notice, a liability notice, a decision on the performance of a refund claim, or a warning, simultaneously with the determination or collection of the tax amount (MKLS § 116; provision linked to the subsection, source [2]).
The advisory procedure itself does not create legal protection for the undertaking against an interest claim, because the interest obligation arises independently by operation of law. The interest rate is 0.06 per cent per day (MKLS § 117(1), source [15]). If the tax authority has not performed the refund claim within the deadline, it is obliged to accrue interest on the unrefunded amount (MKLS § 116, source [8]), i.e. interest rates apply in both directions. Claims and obligations are extinguished, inter alia, by payment or set-off, by performance of the refund claim, by limitation (§ 33(4), § 132), and by the remission of tax arrears (MKLS § 31(3), source [10]). The sources do not contain case law.
The undertaking can respond to the interest claim within the administrative procedure.
"If the document does not allow identification, the amount paid on the basis of that document is subject to income tax pursuant to clause 51 (2) 3 of the Income Tax Act."
"Failure to submit the annual report may result in a penalty payment and, in the event of a longer-term breach, also in the deletion of the company from the register."
The day-to-day accounting matters of a small private limited company are not technical nuances here, but direct statutory obligations whose fulfilment is verifiable and whose breach entails tax and company-register consequences. The news item discusses five common situations in which the decisive factor is whether the transaction has a proper documentary basis and whether the boundary between the company and its owner is traceable in the accounting records. Under subsection 2 (2) of the Accounting Act, every private legal person registered in Estonia is subject to the accounting obligation, including an inactive private limited company. Subsection 6 (2) requires all business transactions to be documented and recorded in the registers within a reasonable time after the transaction takes place. Subsection 57 (1) of the Taxation Act provides that a taxable person must keep accounting records in the cases and in the manner prescribed by the Accounting Act, and subsection 57 (3) requires that the records allow, within a reasonable time, an overview of transactions and of circumstances material for taxation, including income, expenses, assets and liabilities.
Making personal expenditures from the company's account is not prohibited as such, but it must have a proper basis and accounting treatment; where the transaction document does not allow the party to be identified, the amount is subject to income tax under clause 51 (2) 3 of the Income Tax Act, as explained in the official guidance on expenses unrelated to the business. The precondition for recording expenses as business expenses is a connection with the business and its demonstrability; section 7 of the Accounting Act requires the source document to identify the transaction, and section 9 and subsection 11 (1) set out the requirements for accounting registers and internal rules, in which the cost-accounting principles must be defined. In the matter of the owner's salary and dividends, the actual substance of the transaction is decisive: a payment which by its nature corresponds to remuneration for work is taxable on that basis regardless of the fact that it is labelled as a dividend. For an inactive private limited company, the full set of obligations listed in points 1–5 of section 4 of the Accounting Act applies, including the documentation of business transactions and the preparation and submission of the annual report even where no business activity has taken place; a sole proprietor may, under section 43, use cash-basis accounting, and where accrual accounting is not used, the reporting obligation under section 14 does not apply. The sources include no case law, so the judicial treatment of similar disputes cannot be assessed on the basis of the material presented.
In practice, this means three directly verifiable sets of obligations for the entrepreneur:
Of practical importance to the entrepreneur is that reviewing tax obligations before a purchase or before approaching a threshold avoids subsequent corrections and additional payments. The news item merely recommends reviewing the company's obligations with an accountant once a year and ensuring that the necessary reports have been submitted.