Construction company halts work despite overpayment

Consult your lawyer about this. You might be able to offset the court and attorney fees with the next invoice, possibly also penalty fees already incurred, but I am uncertain about that. Only pay if the service has been provided in accordance with the contract. My crystal ball says that this general contractor will not finish your house and you need every euro.

Do not pay, ask a lawyer. Possibly transfer the invoice portion to the carpenter directly... so that he also gets paid for his work...

The court and attorney fees as well as the contractual penalties incurred so far were paid by him with some delay because we did not agree to a postponement. Our lawyer would have otherwise enforced these payments through the courts. We really hoped that he would now stop his damn games from the past after the settlement, but we were obviously mistaken. According to the settlement, he must finish building the house, but in what quality????

Don't pay, ask the lawyer. Possibly transfer the invoiced share directly to the carpenter... so that he also gets the money for his work...

I have already considered that too. They really do good work (the first trade for which I can say that about this house), but I have to clarify with the lawyer whether that is possible. I have no contract with them.

According to the comparison, he has to finish building the house, but in what quality????

He already had to do that based on the existing contract. The question is whether he can do it. In my opinion, you should not give an inch anymore and not make any official or unofficial statements without the approval of your lawyer.

He would have, but now the situation is such that he would be committing comparative fraud if he doesn't continue building, and that would probably also have private law consequences for him. However, I also think that he can't afford it financially. My lawyer is wishy-washy about it, as I had already mentioned before, that there are very different views on this. His opinion is: "You can pay the invoice, but you don't have to"; "Everything will be fine." My external site manager is stricter and says the invoice will be rejected.

The two should also go hand in hand. The BL should provide the factual justification for rejecting the invoice and the RA the legal one along with prose. It will certainly work, maybe you still need to agree on the common approach in the end. In my opinion, there is only one left, but of course that is your decision.