Our experience with buying a kitchen

Kitchen studio salespeople have now reached the level of insurance agents with me.

We planned a Nolte kitchen at Pforzheimer Möbelzentrum, which belongs to the xxxl group, including measurement and installation. So far, everything is fine, the kitchen has been in place since Tuesday, but the granite countertop is still missing.

Yesterday we received an invoice of 1350€, which surprised me a lot because these additional costs were never mentioned in this amount. The salesman only said that about 600€ would come for cutting and milling the flush-mounted sink and cooktop and that this must be settled directly with the executing company.

Now, however, there are items listed such as measurement 180€, installation 550€, delivery 120€, sink connection 80€, cleaning set, etc.

Unfortunately, the contract states an additional measurement and delivery according to effort.

I think we were not sufficiently informed, and this is an attempt to squeeze more money out of the customer.

I then went directly to the place yesterday, unfortunately, the salesman is on vacation, so I spoke directly with the team leader. She claimed that the items are broken down in the application form and that we were informed about this in writing. She then found the form in the salesman's documents, but none of the additional costs were written there. From that point on, she became sassy and tried to brush us off. Next week I am supposed to get in touch with the next higher boss... I am curious.

Just out of interest - what did you pay in total? Yesterday we also planned a Nolte kitchen with smooth matt lacquer fronts and a "simple worktop" (a G with 3 tall cabinets, 60 base cabinet, dead corner, 100 base cabinet, 90 base cabinet, dead corner, 30 base cabinet, 3x 60 base cabinets dead corner, 90 base cabinet - then 2 60 wall cabinets - good appliances) and ended up at €10,600.

I know your kitchen planning.

We paid 13,400.

High-gloss fronts without handles + 80 induction without cooktops, ceramic sink, everything flush-mounted, Bosch appliances + 3 tall cabinets with pull-out pantry + carousel in the right corner.
A 160cm wall cabinet and 2x 80 wall cabinets.
The cooking "island" is equipped with drawers on one side and 30cm deep cabinets on the other side.

Only the recirculating hood is from a different company

To obtain a realistic price determination, I recommend entering all parts and services offered in writing into a spreadsheet and also creating a separate list with the desired requirements. When comparing different offers, this way you can identify what might be missing from the offers and could lead to additional costs, as well as how high-quality the offer is. Flat-rate offers with statements like "Buy from us, and you will receive a granite kitchen countertop for free" are, in my opinion, not trustworthy. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to recognize charlatans. However, one should not assume that only cheap is good.