Building with a general contractor - claim for additional costs shortly before the start of construction

Who owns the property? If there was a building there before, it was also part of the contract. The demolition must be paid for.

Has anyone had a comparable experience before? What is the best solution here?

I constantly have such experiences professionally. The basis for a solution is to calm down the emotion, think first, then act, and always maintain good communication. For me it sounds like this: You are annoyed about a price increase, your expectation of an explanation is not met, and you first stop the project. Your general contractor interprets that you either no longer want to continue or can no longer do so, and reacts accordingly. It seems as if you have lost sight of your goal.

I understand from this that the original poster received an offer and also accepted it. Thus, a contract has been concluded. And therefore, the services of the general contractor must be remunerated - no matter how one can get out of the situation (on both sides). And if a contract has been concluded, there is currently no fixed price.

May I ask a silly question. If a contract was concluded, why does the offer price then not apply?

Uiuiuiuiuiuiui, Owowowowow. It probably couldn't have gone more past each other :-(

We carried out our house planning with a locally known construction company (general contractor) based on an offer including a description of construction services, submitted the building application, and completed the detailed planning. The contract was supposed to reach us before the start of construction. After multiple inquiries and urgings, we then received an email two days before the planned start of construction on a Saturday with a preliminary cost update, but still no contract.

The - including implied - acceptance of an offer already turns it into a contract. If the offer did not yet meet your demands for a contract, you should not have accepted it. Now you have accepted it, thereby created a contract (without having stipulated any improvements to its content) and are basically liable to the other party for damages if you want to get out of the contract.

Now, without any justification, additional costs amounting to about 10% of the total house price are demanded. This has led us, in conjunction with the building permit not yet having been issued, to stop the construction project until clarification. This, in turn, quickly prompted the general contractor to offer us the termination of the project and compensation for the work performed so far according to HOAI, which we rejected and insisted on fulfillment.

By insisting on fulfillment, you have once again emphasized that a contract exists. Unfortunately, it seems you both made oversights here: you did not agree on the binding period of the prices or the limitation of their adjustment to cost increases despite the still uncertain start of construction, and so on. You have no claim to a remedy for both your oversights but must come to an agreement about it. The contractor therefore responded quite appropriately to your halt with the offer of a termination agreement. With compensation for his previous expenses (without an additional charge for lost profit!) he will prevail in the first instance and will even be praised by the judge for his fairness; in the second instance, this would be fully affirmed at least or could even turn further in his favor, and if your lawyer has even a shred of decency, he will explain exactly the same to you and recommend an out-of-court settlement. That the general contractor now calculates his planning costs according to HOAI is indeed somewhat steep for a drafting-only planning but on the other hand absolutely fine: you have omitted to make an express deviating arrangement—there is no objection in my opinion to applying a recognized standard as a fallback. I firmly assume that an arbitrator would not explain the situation to you differently.

Furthermore, the general contractor wanted to charge us for the demolition costs of his shell builder, which we also rejected with reference to the still missing building permit.

I assume this does not mean expenses for the demolition of a predecessor building, but merely the cancellation costs of the shell builder (who has the freedom, deviating from the general contractor, to also want his lost profit compensated in order to likewise agree to the termination agreement).

In summary, I sincerely thank you for your suggestion made by presenting your case to ask my lawyer for a guest article on Baulotse-Hoffmann, which will clearly explain to overly optimistic builders what actually creates contracts :)

May I ask a stupid question. If a contract was concluded, why does the offer price then not apply?

Property. The price applies, but it could also be adjusted. However, since we neither know what the offer looked like (and its acceptance), who might possibly have to be held responsible for a delay in the schedule, whether VOB was agreed upon in the offer, etc., anything is possible. But regardless of what was agreed, if services were rendered within the scope of the contract awarded, they are to be remunerated. just wrote it nicely.

May I ask a stupid question? If a contract was concluded, why does the quoted price not apply?

Your question is by no means stupid. A legally valid contract was indeed concluded—but not what Little Fritz (and apparently also the OP here) call a "contract," meaning one where "contract" is written at the top and then a bunch of paragraphs follow, which themselves are again titled "price guarantee" or something similar. This leads, on the one hand, to the OP’s incomprehension about the apparent absence of a contract (in the expected form as a sealed parchment scroll, delivered by a mounted messenger), but on the other hand to a valid contract nonetheless (albeit with unfortunately missed provisions). The missed provisions are then replaced by usual customs or remain open gaps until these are remedied by amendments. Here, however, apparently no preliminary agreement occurred to be willing to make amendments and to leave the contract pending until then (as the OP naïvely assumes as a matter of course). It probably went like this: the OP said, "Plan and build me a house with xyz square meters," and the general contractor responded with an offer, "I will plan and build you the house in the desired size with ABC equipment according to the known construction specification at the price of so much." At the latest with the start of planning, the OP tacitly accepted the contractor’s offer. As described, both parties missed regulating further points, such as the duration of the price guarantee or limits on its adjustment for increased costs. These omissions alone do not yet impede the validity of the concluded contract—the parties are jointly responsible for the gaps in their contract. Even if termination conditions were omitted, both have accordingly put themselves in the hands of the other’s goodwill. The OP can now insist on "performance," but such does unfortunately not consist in granting a "unrealistic" assumption of a cost increase of zero. However, he signals such an attitude to the contractor, who understandably responds with the offer of a termination agreement (which the OP apparently does not recognize as such). A lawyer obviously cannot help by simply saying, "I will enforce that the other party shares your legal view," but can only explain to the OP his situation (and his involvement in getting into it). The price increase itself simply arose from reality. It would enter the existing contract—if it were not terminated—solely because nothing else was agreed. From my point of view—as a businessman, not a lawyer—the notification of changed prices is now a notification of a changed basis of business. The OP is apparently not aware that he had three options in reaction: 1) Affirming interest > maintaining the contract with acceptance of the new prices; 2) Declaring the desire to negotiate a price agreement; 3) Rejecting the new prices along with terminating the interest (not the contract!) precisely because of the change in the basis of business and referring to this > signaling to the other side "please make a termination offer." The contractor apparently interpreted the reaction as choice of option 3 and acted absolutely properly accordingly. Now the OP just has to realize that he must again consider this offer. Currently, he remains in the contract in suspense and can count himself lucky if the contractor has not agreed on damages for the time lost while the contract was pending (and would first have to quantify these to claim them). To invoice the costs accrued so far now seems to me absolutely appropriate and to be expected.