Is it possible to install load-bearing walls on the ground floor / upper floor with a slight offset?

Hello,

in principle, load-bearing walls should ideally be aligned one above the other to avoid any additional costs due to beams / girders, etc. Everything is feasible, it is always a question of effort and cost.

Now to the specific question:
If on the ground floor and the upper floor there is each a load-bearing 24 cm wall (solid construction) aligned one above the other, is it allowed for the wall on the upper floor to have an offset of 12 cm without additional support measures being necessary? Actually, this should work because the walls still overlap by 12 cm, so the load should be adequately transferred, right?

What are the limits regarding the offset, if it is at all possible? Maybe even more is possible? It would just provide a bit more flexibility in the floor plan.

Maybe someone has experience regarding this.

The load-bearing wall on the upper floor not only rests with its own weight on the ceiling of the ground floor and on the load-bearing wall beneath it, but also with the weight of the ceiling of the upper floor.

Imagine a pair of scissors, a scale, and a seesaw, then the principles touched on here will become clear to you. From my point of view, with the intended construction you would create a case of "stupid load transfer."

If the floor plan dimensions are so "tight" that you cannot make a room on one floor just a little bit wider in order to place the wall exactly above/below it on the other floor, I would say: the floor planner has not done their homework yet.

Making up for planner homework in structural engineering is often possible, but many times more complex and expensive. If money (and steel, and appearance, and headroom due to beams) are no Rolex, load-bearing walls can theoretically also be offset by half a bay in "rhythm" against each other.