Building inspection by the city before moving in?

Hello everyone,

we are basically done with our house construction, but a proper entrance and the paving of the garage are still missing. Due to the current weather, the landscaper can't do much, and we have terminated our apartment lease for the end of March. Are we allowed to move into the house without the final inspection by the city? If not, is it enough to schedule the appointment for the end of March when these points are completed? Are we then allowed to move in immediately, or do we have to wait a few weeks for a document again? The inspection by the city is causing us a lot of anxiety.

What kind of final acceptance? Never heard of it. Is that some self-created municipal thing? Or do you just believe that something else will come?

We are building in NRW and as far as I have heard, the city comes by within a week after reporting the completion to inspect everything. Only then is the usage permit granted or not. I will ask the city again today how exactly the process works because there really seem to be big differences from municipality to municipality….

The draft author sends the construction completion notification to the building authority and that's it. There is no "acceptance" by any municipal employees.

That seems to be different even within NRW. Someone actually came by after submitting the building completion notification. Although he didn't care that the house had recently been occupied, it was still an official inspection. The cost for that was 100 euros.

That is rather unusual and would surprise me. Normally, only the bank is interested. Otherwise, I could imagine that someone from the office might come in the case of very strict regulations, e.g., due to [Denkmalschutz] or [Umweltschutz]. But with a standard regular house construction, rather not. And if so, why does that worry you?