Equipment selection only after contract conclusion – how do you deal with it? For example, Bien-Zenker

Dear forum,

we are facing some decisions regarding our planned prefabricated house project with the company Bien-Zenker.

In the prefabricated house handbook by Stiftung Warentest, it is recommended to sign the construction contract only after sampling.

Is this a practical tip or not feasible in reality?
My concern is that we
a) only know the final price at the sampling appointment – of course, we will plan several thousand euros extra here, but it still feels as if I were signing a car contract and only afterwards use the configurator, and
b) certain features, e.g. stairs, are not available from the provider at all and otherwise we might have chosen a different house builder. The latter is important to us since we want to build turnkey.

Thank you very much!

It depends somewhat on the provider, and I don’t know Bien-Zenker in that regard.

But the magic word is: pre-sampling!

We went to a total of three providers for pre-sampling (also because one provider went bankrupt... pre-samplings already require a clear interest). For 2 of the 3 providers, the pre-sampling was very thorough and then largely incorporated into the contract. Only the electrical planning and visual highlights were not. (Something like the number of sockets is possible; if the contract states, for example, 25 single sockets and 10 double sockets, you can already say "but we want 20 single sockets, 30 double sockets, and 5 quadruple sockets.")

That obviously made it much more predictable.

If the providers don’t cooperate and don’t want to include that in the contract? Okay, off to the next provider. (Jokes aside, if you clearly say you won’t sign otherwise, it will be done accordingly.)

Of course, that did not mean that something couldn’t still change in the end – it did for us too. But then only medium rather than big surprises came up.

Selection of features only after contract signing – how do you deal with this? For example, Bien-Zenker

Exactly such a question was thoroughly dealt with just yesterday in the now already closed thread https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/weberhaus-ausstattungsprotokoll-schluesselfertiges-einfamilienhaus.49230/ so that you will already find everything about it there. Does no one anymore at least read "that far" to the left and right, at least to discover the identical questions of the last handful of days?