Hello Bob1983
Caution! Very thin ice!
"Sollen" is good. Means "not must".
I have just experienced a memorable event.
I start digging behind the house. It’s supposed to become a climate cellar.
At about 2 meters deep I find a skeleton. It was an elk. These animals roamed here several hundred thousand years ago. And just at that time there was an old Rhine arm under my house.
I think the bones might be interesting to someone and call the authority. The nice person explains to me that there is a construction stop first. I had expected that. In my youthful naivety I thought everything would be done in 2-3 weeks. Far from it. The official said they will first put out a tender so that an excavation contractor digs around the find site down to below the skeleton and secures the pit. Costs of over 20,000 euros quickly add up. When that is done, the archaeologists come with little brushes and small buckets. And they have time.
When everything is over, it will be decided whether I may continue digging.
And the kicker: I have to pay both the excavation contractor and the archaeologists as the "causer".
If anything is found in the ground, it will be decided whether it is excavated at the landowner’s expense, or if the house construction is cancelled.
Strange law, but it is the law.
Steven