Kniestock lowered afterwards

Hello everyone,

We planned our house with a developer. The knee wall was 1.50 m in the first draft, which was important to us so that you can still put some cabinets or dressers there.

Now the financing is done and the down payment made etc., and suddenly they say they overlooked something in the fine print of the building regulations, and the knee wall may only be 1 m high. In return, they would change the roof pitch from 38 to 45 degrees. That would increase the volume, and we would have a really nice large attic..

That's great - but doesn't help much with the living space. That actually takes away quite a bit of living space, or are we seeing it wrong?

Before I start complaining, I wanted to hear your opinion on this. I think they could at least give us a few square meters as compensation, right?

Thanks in advance!

You're not entirely wrong there - try furnishing the rooms, then you'll see whether and how dramatic it is for you. We have a good 1.6 m knee wall and also noticed that even the wall is only conditionally suitable for placing furniture. Children's wardrobes and taller dressers fit, though. Often, you put a dresser against the wall and the bed, and you actually don't lose much space - playing takes place in the middle of the room. However, in terms of effect, it is probably a difference - we were / are often told how great the high knee wall is and that you can do so much with it. Do you want to convert the attic? You can cheekily ask if the construction company will accommodate you during the attic conversion. A normal storage attic is nonsense... we have 60 sqm and store one box and 5 tiles on it; and in hindsight, I would throw away the box because it was a hassle to get it through the hatch.

Do you want to convert the attic? You can boldly ask if the construction company will accommodate you with the conversion of the attic.

I can only really be amazed at this statement.....

Of course, it is annoying that a draftsman made a mistake with the contracting party. On the other hand, the result is the same: more than 1.00 m knee wall is not approvable.

Are you all actually error-free....?

Rhenish greetings

Mistakes happen, now you have to make the best of it. The restriction exists and you could have also read it from the development plan beforehand, so you can't solely blame the contractor here.

But on the other hand, you have to ask yourselves whether you like a 45° roof pitch and if you really need the attic. Alternatively, a cost-neutral enlargement of the house area (compared to the now lower knee wall) would be a solution. This would even result in more floor space. Would 45° even be permitted?

We have a knee wall of 90cm in the children’s and bedrooms, and you can make use of that too, e.g. the head of our bed is directly against the wall there as well as the end of a chest of drawers. By the way, we reduced the roof pitch again to 35° and left the entire attic open. This results in a better sense of space with the knee wall, in my opinion.

Well... if the construction companies charge €1500 per 10 cm of knee wall (for example, Viebrockhaus wanted that from us) and now 50 cm are missing, it doesn't really have much to do with errorlessness... of course, I don't know how and what is stated or calculated in the contract.

Well, error-free or not. It happens, look for a solution.

But I would classify this as at least 2 categories above carelessness.

How many relevant restrictions does a [Bebauungsplan] impose? Maybe 10?
I do expect my construction partner to consider them correctly.