Buying land without a soil survey?

For a new development area, there should be a general report. Although it does not replace yours, conclusions can be drawn. We secured our plot without BGG and only had it done after signing. In the case of a mountain or hill, there may be a lot of debris present. But the buffer of 20000 is very well calculated. You will surely be glad about the savings later and be able to spend them on other purposes.

In short, regards

Pile foundation for a single-family house? You either had a) something very special with 3 floors and cantilevered levels b) planned to build in a swamp area, on a steep slope, or similar where no other houses stand c) or a deep foundation contractor who wanted to earn a bit more from you...

Pile foundation for a single-family house?
You either had
a) something very special with 3 floors and cantilevered levels
b) planning to build in a swamp area, on a steep slope, or similar where no other houses stand
c) or a civil engineer who wanted to earn a bit more from you...

Pile constructions or total soil replacement are normal for us on the Elbe

... so on the edge of the Elbe


Brief regards

It was a swamp area with several springs. But we didn't get the property anyway. It was a selection process and families from the town were given preference.

Today we went briefly to the NBG again. According to one of the neighbors, it is clay soil on sandstone with some rubble and little topsoil. At most, there might have been some problems with rock during the cellar construction. That sounds pretty good, I think.

For a new development area, there should be a general assessment. Although it does not replace yours, one can draw conclusions from it. We secured our property without BGG as well and only had it done after signing. In the case of a mountain or hill, there may be a lot of debris. But the buffer of 20000 is very well calculated. You will surely be happy about the savings later and be able to spend it on other purposes.

Best regards in brief

Super, I will inquire about it.

Asking neighbors never hurts and can give a general idea. Still, the soil is always a huge lottery and can range from being lucky to ending up in a court case against the seller. Both have happened within 50 meters in our new development area. Some didn’t even need the usual 30cm excavation, which is typically included in the BU price. Others had to have the entire! property replaced over 2 meters deep because they found not-so-great things in it (which then led to a lawsuit). Our neighbor with the house 10 meters from ours had a building expert report done. Since he built with the same company as we did, they simply used his report for our property. It was sufficient for the house; with rainwater drainage, the big luck came. We had high groundwater and therefore about €3000-4000 in additional costs. A prior report would have saved at most €1000 of the extra costs, so we played the lottery, lost but in the end didn’t pay more than expected. So: ask your immediate potential neighbors. That way, you also get to know them and certainly receive great tips for planning, etc. With €20,000 you can already get quite far with earthworks. Probably on flat terrain, even with bad soil, half of that will suffice. If you can somehow do the earthworks yourself (agriculture with a tractor + trailer and transporting the soil to the farm or something similar – even 500 sqm just disappears like that...), the costs are a joke anyway (only the material for backfilling costs).