Buy the kitchen more than a year before completion?

Down payment? Since the kitchen is not ordered/produced yet due to the long lead time, a down payment should not be necessary. We only made a down payment two or three months before the delivery date.

Yes ok, we also only made the down payment upon approval of the kitchen, not at the time of signing.

I am ordering my next week from the carpenter and will have it delivered at the beginning of May

Hello, we signed about 6 months before completion, but I can still change all sorts of things. I wouldn't sign so early... what advantage is that supposed to have? The latest kitchen appliances are not planned there either, but discontinued models. For me, the induction cooktop will still be changed to the latest model, that was not available at the time of contract signing.

Serious companies? Guarantee for a kitchen?

A guarantee for the down payment amount from the kitchen studio/furniture store. Of course that exists, I know several cases in the area.

With us, a kitchen was included in the house price. It wasn’t anything special in theory but okay. At the kitchen studio, you simply got a credit for what the construction company had calculated for it and could choose freely (it was about 4000). For that money, we then got the stove top and the refrigerator (well, almost). The kitchen plan then went directly from the kitchen studio to the construction company, we had nothing to do with it. It worked smoothly. Deposits over 1 year in advance are nonsense. Deposits should be made when it really starts, so that the company does not produce the equipment for nothing. When kitchen cabinets are placed between two fixed walls, a compensation element is always used so that it fits properly. The raw wall should not be 300cm for 60 cabinets but 305 or something similar. (First of all because of plaster and general tolerance). It is extremely bad if the finished dimension ends up being 299cm due to tolerances. You can then work some magic (sanding down individual cabinet elements), but it is not nice.