Location of city villa or single-family house on 500 m2 plot - rectangular

So, dear ones,
I'm back from the measurements. I hope the Berlin bureaucracy is reliable and that the Housing Office also follows the Berlin Building Code when deciding whether a living space is considered living space. Because for habitable rooms, a minimum height of 2.50m is required in "non-attic rooms." The bungalow has nowhere this height and varies between 2.30 and 2.44 in its height.
I have sent corresponding photos and an email to the responsible office and hope for the best...

But doesn't there practically apply a right of protection? Not all apartments/houses with lower ceilings can be disqualified as living space, can they?

No, but I can't be forced to keep this "undignified" living space either... I would say. And it was actually the caseworker from the housing office who brought me to the basic idea. She just didn't name the necessary limit. Or rather, I forgot to ask. In the Zweckentfremdungsgesetz and the ordinance related to it, there is no definition of living space. Therefore, the definition must be derived from another legal basis. That would be my view on the matter in any case.

Update: The housing office initially confirmed to me (informally) that the property is not considered protected residential space within the meaning of the Zweckentfremdungsgesetz. I am allowed to convert my application for Zweckentfremdung into an application for a negative certificate. That's amazing. Otherwise, the application would have been rejected and I would still have had to pay 10-50% of the fees (250 EUR). I can also just demolish it at my own risk, even if I might be in violation... Berlin offices...

Anyway, theoretically I could demolish it now, but we still have to completely disconnect the electricity and water, otherwise the demolition contractor won't start. Water is not much of a problem. Electricity is reported on the one hand to my electrician, processing takes 8 weeks. On the other hand, someone contacts me by phone this week about the decommissioning.

Also, the building permit is finally here. That means work can start soon. But now the general contractor is no longer responding to my inquiries and is also not reachable by phone....

So, a little update:
I now have a highly official negative certificate from the housing office stating that the existing building on the property is not considered protected residential space in terms of the ban on misuse.

I have a building permit, which the GÜ needed in original form by the way (is that common?), and the plans are progressing.

In the meantime, the subdivision is almost complete; at least we have received a notice regarding the establishment of the new boundaries and the cadastral marks as well as the continuation notification. This now just has to go to the land registry office.

Unfortunately, disconnecting the various lines is proving to be more time-consuming than expected. Fortunately, my future neighbor is taking care of that. However, the processing times of the Berlin utility providers seem to be trying their best to surpass those of the Berlin authorities.

Reconnecting is not so simple either.
Anyone who has followed the thread from the beginning knows that I have the front of two plots and therefore have to grant the rear owner rights of way for walking, driving, and utilities. To somewhat ease my dissonance about this and also because everything else fit, I decided to use the strip as an access road after all.
To save costs, we also wanted to lay the necessary ducts with conduits for the required lines as part of the earthworks.
In my mind, this could have been done wonderfully right after the demolition by the same excavator operator (since the excavator would already be there).
However, the same strip is now supposed to become the construction road, which will be used for several months by heavy construction vehicles and trucks. That means laying conduits under it now is perhaps not so sensible. I remember a thread here where a conduit broke even without a construction road and became unusable.
So, we will probably have to have the house connections installed only after the shell construction phase, or maybe even later.

The situation with the GFL strip and the construction road brings an additional difficulty.
For electricity, I had the idea to place an outdoor column right at the corner of the property. There is still a masonry column standing there, which is to remain and could practically serve as a protective buffer for the electricity column. However, the network operator placed its position on the other side of the GFL strip in its offer, i.e., right in the access to the construction road.
I have contacted them now, but if processing an email takes only half as long as processing the electricity application, then I might get a reply in a month.
The question is also where the construction power will come from. The masons already need it, don’t they?

A small side adventure: There is still an old gas tank on the property, which unfortunately will only be taken away empty by the demolition guy.
We had a level indicator showing 20 (%?). We tried to reduce that by heating the existing building. But try emptying a tank at 34° outside temperature and a maximum thermostat setting of 30°. Anyway, we thought maybe a gas guy would pump it out and appreciate the gas. No such luck; he wants 250 EUR for it, and his business is just around the corner—really only 800m from the property.
Not exactly neighborly help.

I have now requested a ventilation system and am waiting for an official offer from the GÜ for the BAFA as well as a supplementary offer for myself.
I am curious where this will end up in combination with the subsidy.

I was already told that a floor height increase of the upper floor will be necessary for it. That is not very expensive (1900 EUR). But I wondered how this works with the building permit? A height is specified there after all; can I just change it like that? The construction manager says 12-13 cm is no problem since I am in the first row.
I don’t get what that has to do with it; my issue is that I am building differently than applied for. Does this require a correction?

And last but not least: We have new arrival. The good one (you see him in my avatar) has a pedigree and is practically noble.
I studied history once and know that the nobility did not always behave well, but that messing on clothes shouldn’t have to be part of it...
Still, it is a pleasure to watch him grow and thrive. He won’t get his own room, so no floor plan adjustment is necessary. :P

Wow, how time flies. A little bit has changed as well.
I have received a fee notice for the negative certificate. 150 bucks. For officially confirming what I painstakingly measured myself. That’s quite something. Well, porcelain mother box and all that.

We have now also been assigned new parcel numbers. My property carries the same number as the old overall parcel. My rear neighbors have the suffix A. What’s funny is that the neighboring neighbor – the one who built the house on his father’s front property and started closer than 5m to the street – carries the same number with the suffix B, while his father has a number one higher. But his property was split off from his father’s property… One has to understand the logic of the Berlin authorities.
Oh, cost point 70 EUR and from 1.1.21 I have to attach an illuminated parcel number somewhere where it is visible from the street!

The tax office has fortunately already informed me of the standard value and property tax assessment amount for my part of the property (explicitly no payment request).

The subdivision has unfortunately still not arrived at the land registry, which I find a bit strange... I will have to ask the notary how things look on that front.

By the way, the property is now actually free of utilities. That means the demolition could be scheduled (unfortunately only for 12.10.) and will take about 1 week.

The new connection issue was more or less brought to a preliminary conclusion through a phone call with the executing company: The company’s clerk explicitly recommended not to place the outdoor column in the GFL strip, even if the spot would practically not be accessible as a driveway because of a tree anyway. It’s simply about the fact that these 3 meters that are publicly secured on the surface must definitely remain free. Even if I now get along with my future neighbor and agree. A legal successor could insist that I dismantle the outdoor column...
What this means regarding the tree standing in front of the property, which blocks around 0.5–1m of the 3m, I would be quite interested in.
But whatever, this led to me now having scheduled a connection appointment for setting up an outdoor column and then I just have to pick another nice spot at the property border, but far enough away from the GFL strip and the tree and the future construction road. I’m already thinking about how I might disguise the thing…
I answered the question about construction power etc. in another thread here ( ).
Short: I can get to the column with a construction power box or the electrician assigned by the general contractor will do it then.

The ventilation system additional offer is about 16,000 EUR, minus BAFA of about 10,000 EUR = 6,000 EUR extra cost for me.
I have now commissioned it ( ).

Stairs sampled at external stair builder. It will be a closed ash stringer staircase with gray lacquered treads, rest white oiled (so the grain shows through). Price is still pending.

The noble (but not always well-behaved) poodle is still alive and can now run faster than me (which isn’t so hard).

Until next time

LG

Tolentino