Discolored clinker, house facade, compensation, appraiser?

Hello dear community,

after being a regular reader here during the house construction phase, I have to turn to you today with a cry for help.

During the house construction phase, the jointing contractor of the developer acid-treated our facing brick or treated it with another liquid, which caused the light/white facing brick to become much darker or very yellowish, which it was not before!!
All attempts to negotiate have failed so far because the jointing contractor does not want to agree and refers to normal efflorescence.
One day after washing the bricks, the whole facade was yellow... meanwhile it looks like it does in the pictures.

He has now offered us 500 EUR... really ridiculous.
It is now going to arbitration.

My questions to you:

1) What are my chances of success with the pictures you can see... which I find very clear as a layman.
2) What would be a realistic amount that an expert might award us as compensation... since we could of course also lose the arbitration and then be stuck with the expert costs, I would like to assess the risk...

I look forward to any comments and suggestions... we are completely in the dark and do not know whether we should take the risky step with arbitration.
But look at the pictures... it is a pity!

Gruß
Christian

Thank you for your help... Of course, we would have preferred the original condition again... but that has failed. Even a joint cleaner has reached its limits. The estimate was 3500 EUR. We declined it because they rubbed off all the white sand on the test stones. That was even worse than the yellow tint.

Therefore, the original condition can never be restored. Knocking out all the stones is not proportionate... of course.

So now it's about compensation... what is especially annoying is that the color is not the same on every side. Much more yellow in the east than in the west, for example. It looks really bad when you look at it closely....

It annoys me every day! Money only helps to a limited extent... but if the house is ever sold, the appraiser will immediately see the defect and deduct money right away...

We have the sample panel from the builder... with that, we have also been there several times and you can see the difference very clearly! He admits that himself, but the jointer refuses to cooperate and does not see the fault with himself... and only he wants the appraiser, so the builder has to go along because he doesn't want to be left with the costs...

The original stone is called Geestbrand Röben bunt/weiß. The example photos on the website are quite clear... a completely different stone.

In addition, we also have pictures of the clinker as it looked before... namely just like that of the comparison house. The discoloration only occurred after it was cleaned with chemicals. Not all sides reacted the same way... I guess it depends on how intensively the side was washed with water. The east side is much more yellowish than the west side, for example. If you are standing in front of just one side, you quickly think that is the original tone... but when you look at the individual sides, you quickly see that we do not have the same shade here. So the question is, what would be a realistic amount to offer to bypass the expert... 500 EUR is a nice try but even I understand that this is more of a joke than a serious offer. Christian

Were the photos (before/after) taken with the same camera under the same lighting conditions (cloudiness/time/season)? Otherwise, they are not very useful...

Were the photos (before/after) taken with the same camera under the same lighting conditions (cloudiness/time of day/season)? Otherwise, they are not very useful...

Hi,

the white balance is not 100% identical nor are the lighting conditions. It should rather be an indicator.
Based on the white window frames, you can roughly tell that it fits.

In the meantime, I have spent a lot more time comparing the photos before the cleaning with the current condition and also asked a friend who is an expert.
The result is: the only really bad side is the east side of the house... This side is still quite yellow and clearly stands out from all the other sides, which do not have the original color but come very close to it. At least they all have the same color, and it's barely noticeable that it is not the original. An outsider would think it is supposed to be that way.
At least we would not make a fuss about it here and leave it at that...
Because this point is really debatable, and the judgment can go either way.

Only the difference to the east side is very drastic when looking from the corner and having two sides in view.
So here we are actually talking about compensation for one eaves side... since every cleaning attempt by the developer himself, a joint sealer, or a specialist company has failed. And replacing all stones, even if you consider one side a defect, probably won’t happen... And you can’t just replace one side either. How would that look!

Therefore, the final question to you is how high compensation could be... It is quite obvious that the offer of 500 EUR is disproportionate, but the developer has shown further willingness to negotiate and to settle this without an expert.

How much do you consider reasonable for this one side?



Thanks
Christian