Construction company halts work despite overpayment

You have to start separating. One thing is the (allegedly) unfulfilled contract, the other is the identified defects. He probably fulfilled the contract up to the legal dispute. You have a conversation, he stops the construction work due to the weather. Announces this as well. You start bringing out the big guns. =Pause

The defects are annoying but do not lead to uninhabitability. Here it would probably have been wise to formally and timely complain about the defects. He can then remedy them.
If in doubt, you could have withheld the last installment.

But that doesn’t really help anymore now. Only in the sense that the lawyer is probably right and is taking the right approach.

The important thing, and this has been advised repeatedly, is to focus on the construction and not the guy. Regardless of whether he is an asshole or a fraud or whatever else. It just doesn’t help.
Stop stamping your foot on the ground, seeking revenge, and think solution-oriented.
This is only a phase in life. It’s annoying and exhausting, but it will pass.
If you haven’t drawn the loan yet, you really still have the option to pull the ripcord.
That would be super annoying and you’ve sunk a lot of hard-earned money, but that is just money.
Ask yourself where the journey should go. Only the direction of “punishing” the general contractor should be removed as a goal.
There is always a way.

Here is another nice photo of our construction. According to the contract, a 10 cm exterior insulation was applied to the basement. However, this was not taken into account when building the ground floor walls. So now, the insulation protrudes around the house.

With all due respect, a construction company can’t be that stupid, right? To produce something like this?? And if they can, then you can really only be scared!!

Email from BU after office appointment mid-December:
I hereby confirm the following agreements today:
- Payment of €40,000.00 on the last partial invoice at short notice.
- Solid walls in the attic will be constructed cost-neutral according to static specifications; you accept the changed wall thicknesses and any possible changes in wall thickness in the drywall construction.
- The retention of the remaining amount of €7,490 will be withheld for various open points such as building height, etc.,
and after height control in January, together with Mr. ..... and determination of appropriate measures, will be paid out, or an appropriate retention corresponding to the necessary measures will be agreed upon.
- The soil exchange will take place after dismantling the facade scaffolding at the end of the construction work; costs for disposal, loading of any excavated material to be removed, as well as the delivery of compactable fill soil are at your expense. We will carry out the excavation with lateral storage and the installation + compaction for you without any further costs.
- The work will continue as planned in the 2nd calendar week of 2019, provided that the weather permits the masonry work (an obstruction due to adverse weather conditions will be reported).

Apparently, one can indeed be that stupid. His reason was that we commissioned the insulation afterwards. Of course, that is not true, the extra charge for the basement insulation is already included in the construction contract dated 16.05.2018. Construction started in October 2018. But according to the opinion of most of this forum, only we make the mistakes.

Supplement to the email from BU in mid-December: On the same day, the notification of obstruction due to adverse weather conditions was received, although temperatures were consistently above freezing.

No, this is about money and not a romantic relationship....

Naive idea ;) - interpersonal matters are often decisive for success no matter what, no matter how much is involved or which great contracts fill the binders. That’s boring paper to feed lawyers and courts. But that’s a typical German attitude: “I have paper here, so you do it, you little pest!”... but the pest actually does nothing.