House handover even though not everything is finished?

Hello everyone,

the time has come, we have the house handover next week. We are building with an architect. Although not everything is completely finished yet, we want to move in October. The following things are still missing:

1. Door handles
2. a ground floor interior door (thick frame did not arrive)
3. garage door
4. balcony railings
5. balcony coverings (Siberian larch)

Otherwise, everything is basically finished. Before acceptance, I have more and more questions and I have the feeling that my site manager is becoming "more lenient," so suddenly things are okay according to VOB. I would like to occasionally post a question to you here. I’ll start today with a question in the basement:

Between the basement hallway and the basement guest room there is an approximately 0.5 cm edge (on screed transition) between vinyl floor (guest room) and hallway (tile). My site manager says this is tolerable according to VOB. Is that correct? Or is this a defect that I can claim? How high may this edge be at most?

Thank you very much

If the fall protection is not installed, you will not receive a building approval from the building authority and consequently will not be able to move in.

In my opinion, this is a significant defect.

Fall protection? What is that?

What is a balcony railing in your opinion?

It was not about the balcony railings. It was about the 0.5 cm high edge between the basement guest room and the basement hallway.

The acceptance is not with the building authority. Something like that does not exist as a standard in Hamburg. The acceptance is with the architect.

I can't say anything about the edge, but we have something similar between the tiles in the utility room and the tiles in the hallway. However, since it is only the utility room, it doesn't bother me. Relevant DIN standards might possibly help.

There is no final acceptance by the building authority? I can hardly imagine that, even though I have no experience in house construction in Hamburg.

But again: I would never, ever, ever move into a house where essential safety-relevant components are missing. I would also refuse any acceptance until this essential defect is fixed.