Building application single-family house Lower Saxony over 6 months

Hello everyone,

We received an acknowledgment of receipt for our single-family house building application from the building authority in October 2020 and have been waiting for over six months now for the building application to be opened and processing to begin. How much longer it will take until a final assessment is made is another matter entirely. The building authority is closed to visitors due to Corona. The assigned caseworker is reachable neither in writing nor by phone. Written inquiries go unanswered. The building authority points out on its homepage that one should refrain from written status inquiries. These are not answered due to the high number of cases being processed.

In response to a question about an approximate time forecast for when we might expect processing to begin, we received a one-time three-line email referring to chronological processing of all pending building applications and stating that they are not in a position to give a time estimate. No dialogue is possible.

In consultation with legal experts there is the possibility of a lawsuit for inactivity, which, however, most likely will not bring a speed advantage due to the processing time of the administrative courts. Our developer is now postponing the planned construction project, and in a few months, provision interest will become due. We are basically absolutely shocked by the current citizen service and the fact that—even though all preparatory measures including sufficient time buffers were planned—there is not even the slightest ability to make plans and we bear 100% of the disadvantages.

Are we overlooking possible options here or is it really the case that there is no possibility for action?

Best regards

I don't know how it is in NS, but in Berlin there is a permit fiction. That means the permit is considered granted if no statement, for example in the form of a follow-up request, has been made within xy months. Due to Corona, this period was extended by three months. Maybe there's something similar with you?

Disgusting!

Are we overlooking possible options here

Have you tried the phone yet?
Which district court is it? Are there currently, meaning since the end of last year, many new construction projects with you? Where are you located there? With 109 other prospective builders? Is your application basically just a formality or a project that requires work?
I'll put it this way: on average 3 months. Corona can quickly halve the staff of an authority. The advantage: you can inquire about the situation by phone. At the latest after New Year’s, I would have a direct line there.

Disgusting!

Have you tried calling the phone?
Which district office is it? Are there currently, that is, since the end of last year, many new construction projects with you? Where are you located there? With 109 other prospective builders? Is your application basically just rubber-stamped or is it a project that involves work?
I'll put it this way: on average 3 months. Corona can quickly halve the staff of an authority. The advantage: you can inquire about the situation by phone. At the latest after New Year's, I would have a direct line there.

I was once able to establish telephone contact. I was told there that there is no time estimate because the building authority would make itself vulnerable again. Certainly, more is being built than 10 years ago, but from reliable sources (colleagues) I know that there were capacity problems 5 years ago and apparently there has been no increase in staff here. With the increasing building boom, the situation has worsened, but it does not fall from the sky overnight. The building project is not trivial, as there is no development plan and it is a mixed-use development. In this respect, we would be very pleased about any feedback, but in the worst case this situation could continue for months without anyone being able to take action. I believe the caseworkers are only actors in a process with too few people and too many building applications. It seems almost unbelievable to us that there is no option to escape this. Something like a maximum deadline after which the building application is automatically approved unfortunately does not exist in Lower Saxony.

Everything has been cut to the bone. It was exactly the same story with us. You can't do anything, possibly use the redundancy procedure, if that exists with you.

We have now been waiting almost 12 months in Lower Saxony for the building permit for a single-family house. We can probably forget about the Baukindergeld as well, unless a miracle happens. :mad: Just sad... The employees are unfortunately almost never reachable, are sick, or the file gets passed on to another employee again. Then suddenly after months, some documents are requested again that, in my opinion, are not even necessarily required for the application. There is not even any attempt to help the citizen or to cooperate.