Liability in the preparation of a geotechnical report

Hello everyone,

my wife and I are about to buy a house (detached single-family house) with land from a developer. It is located on a hillside. The notarization is scheduled for the end of next week. The current construction status is that the excavation work is completed and the foundation base is currently being prepared.

The developer has not commissioned a soil survey! Since this surprised us quite a bit due to the hillside location, we have commissioned a soil survey at our own expense. We will receive it later today.

What really shocked me now is the following statement from a friend who is an architect: He claims that generally the party who commissions the soil survey is liable for defects caused by the soil conditions. That means: If the developer now builds something that is not recommended in the report, we—not him—are liable for any future damages due to the soil conditions. According to him, he has cleverly avoided liability by not having a soil survey conducted. Is that correct?? (I am not talking about the liability of the soil surveyor, who of course is liable to us for the content of the report)

I am really shocked right now and don’t know how to get clarity on this quickly, so I hope for helpful suggestions here in the forum.

Many thanks to everyone in advance!

Best regards NFA

Why are you interested in whether a developer might possibly bear higher costs for the foundation? In my opinion, you could have saved yourself the money.

I am not concerned about the costs of the expert report, but rather that I, as the client for the expert report, am suddenly supposed to be liable for the structural engineering and stability of the building. How can that be? Which laws reflect this?

how is the developer supposed to prove in court that you hired an expert?! furthermore, the company from which you buy something is always liable (warranty). there is also no reasonable cause why you should suddenly be liable for the poor work of a company. rather, it could be argued that the developer has built worse knowingly than theoretically necessary. if the expert report now says something that the developer does not carry out, there could possibly be problems later. if the expert report does not find anything special anyway, the developer will properly found the house and there will be no trouble in this regard. in the first case, you should not buy, in the second case, there would be no objection. ps: why don’t you actually ask the friendly architect where he got this statement from.