Neighbor wants to raise the house higher!! What to do?

Hello Tina,

You do have a development plan, which apparently sets all heights. Unfortunately, the textual determinations are missing in the documents published by the municipality. However, from the explanations in the justification, I conclude that maximum heights for the ground floor slab, eaves, and ridge are set. First of all, the municipality must be willing to grant exemptions (which I doubt). But even if the municipality grants your neighbor an exemption from complying with the ground floor slab height, that does not mean at all that you will be exempt from complying with the eaves height just because the neighbor has given their consent.
I conclude from your posts that you have a south-facing plot that slopes away from the street. Then you should consider that the further back from the street you build, the greater the height difference to the neighbor will be, since the set heights refer to the existing terrain at the building.
Perhaps your neighbor also wants you to agree to the registration of a building encumbrance, because the increase prevents privileging of the wall height of a potential boundary garage under §8 of the [Landesbauordnung] and thus triggers setback requirements.

Of course, these are all just assumptions intended to prevent you from making premature concessions in discussions with the neighbor.

Hello ,

in addition to the post of my colleague, see above:

If you get your deviation approved by the building authority, this will most likely only happen in coordination with your (!) surrounding neighbors, i.e., you will then again need the consent of the neighbor on the other side ... this can be extended indefinitely.

This means that although you can obtain their consent, as escroda correctly describes, this will not be a 100% guarantee that you can build as you envision, at least not before this has been discussed with the building authority. The problem is that your planning does not even exist yet, meaning: no building application has been submitted on your part.

Therefore, from here we can only recommend that you agree to the neighbor’s deviation if this is also okay for you without any personal advantage, i.e., if you do not experience any disadvantage. A financial compensation is also possible here. That sounds trivial but resolves the mutual condition which may not be enforceable under certain circumstances.

This way, you also find out how much the neighbor actually values putting his house higher.

Best regards
Dirk Grafe

Maybe your neighbor also wants you to agree to the registration of a building encumbrance because the increase prevents the wall height of a possible boundary garage from being privileged according to §8 State Building Code and thus triggers setback areas.

Does that mean we have to keep a greater distance from the boundary afterwards?
Best regards

Hello Tina,

that would probably be the consequence, yes. But it could also be that your building is not affected at all if the buildings are shifted against each other. For example, if your house is located more towards the front of the property and the neighbor has his garage including the [Baulast] at the back of the property, then there may be no impairment of your building structure.

However, this cannot be assessed from a distance and without plans. You can quickly clarify this with the building authority or consult a professional colleague (publicly appointed surveyor) or your architect.

Best regards
Dirk Grafe

Unfortunately, I have not yet received any plans from the neighbor. However, it will look like we want to move our house back by about 10 m in any case, but want to use the entire width of our building window. That means we actually only want to keep a distance of 3 m. We have now contacted the building authority. Best regards

Hi Tina, I find it somehow funny that your neighbor already wants approval without even being able to present any plans. He has to name names, otherwise how are you supposed to decide anything?

Best regards,

Andreas