Construction is continuously delayed - call the site manager?

Hm well I do understand the OP, I would also look stupid if all the neighbors start after me and finish before me....

I don't have any clever advice either...our neighbors started in May and were inside by November.....and that wasn't even a general contractor, but individual contracts with construction supervision.

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I can fully understand you, it was similarly slow for us, I could write a novel about it. So, regarding your question on how to "apply pressure" from my own experience: The only thing that can really help in these times is MONEY. I joined the Homeowners' Protection Association, fortunately found a very good, competent lawyer there, and since then he alone has been communicating with the managing director of the construction company on my behalf – including setting deadlines and clear, severe threat of delay damages – things have been somewhat better. Thankfully, at some point I also had the idea to regularly commission an inspection by an expert from the Homeowners' Protection Association; defects were discovered... amazing! They know they are being monitored and still cut corners – it's unbelievable. Thanks to the detailed defect reports from the Homeowners' Protection Association, one is then forced to withhold certain, of course only justified amounts from the requested installment payments regularly; so that with increasing construction time (unfortunately!) you have more and more money (that is, pressure) in reserve. Nowadays, besides a plot of land and construction money, you also need a lawyer and an expert for a new build – that's just how it is, unfortunately. Hopefully existing exceptions – I expressly wish this to every builder – in my opinion only confirm this rule. They will very likely not make it anywhere close to the deadline with us, we have now been forced to adjust to that and just let it run. Eventually the house will be finished; then the accounting will be done, they will pay dearly for every sleepless night and for every day with stomach pain, that much is certain. In your case, I can only advise: lawyer, as soon as possible, otherwise you have no chance. Everyone has taken on way too many orders, now they only catch up where it matters most to them – where financial losses are threatened. Good luck!

I don't think that as a builder you can orient yourself to the construction time of the neighboring houses. What is stated in your contract applies to you, not the text of the neighbors. If your general contractor specifies construction times of 1 year and the other developer only 3 months, then you simply bought from the wrong one if that was so important to you. Otherwise, it is probably the minimum to first wait for the regular construction time. After that, I can find a solution with a lawyer and a deduction.

Sure, in my argumentation I naturally also assume that the houses are comparable from the neighbors...

V3ctra is already doing the right thing by being behind from the start. I was also way too patient at the beginning, that was wrong. You think they know what they need to do and when, but that’s just not true. They simply don’t care, following the motto: That’s how we’ve always done it. We had the building permit at the end of June, everything was ready. I happily informed the construction company, their response: Our (your) site manager is going on a well-deserved vacation next week for 14 days... effectively, a small excavator with a lonely man inside started on August 26th, pushing a few piles of earth together in the meadow. Then for weeks, 1 or 2 men were on the construction site – with the constantly recurring delays compared to the construction schedule, they just barely managed to get the roof tiles on with the first snow. Result: 3 1/2 months forced winter pause. If only they had intervened earlier... but you’re always wiser afterwards. That’s why V3ectra has exactly the right idea: to look early on. Otherwise, it goes on forever. Eventually the summer holidays come too... and in our construction contract, for example, under weather-related construction time extensions besides rain and snow it also said: "daily temperatures above 25 °C". So maybe at V3ctra in June/July a few weeks of "heat break" will come quickly. Who knows?

I see it completely differently. There is the contract that regulates what happens in case of delay. Is it agreed there that the customer may set the dates for the individual trades? If yes, okay, otherwise it is the general contractor's task to organize their own schedule. I won't let the customer constantly interfere with that. And if a delay occurs, well then they just pay. The amount just must not be too small.