Payment of final installment and acceptance

If it helps you a bit and helps me, I will post the text of the contract, gladly also via PM...

The contract has long been signed. (In the belief, after review by my lawyer, that everything is in order.)

Yes, true; sorry, I forgot. However, this does not change the fact that it is common for the BU to demand a security deposit, as well as that the client (AG) - you - can request a completion guarantee. In this respect, I am not surprised that your lawyer did not object; what surprises me more is that you obviously did not discuss the contents of his review.

I only noticed something was wrong when the security bond form arrived weeks later by mail.

Not retroactively, rather contractually compliant.

If the lawyer had pointed out BEFORE signing the contract to this guarantee and its consequences, I would not have signed the contract. That’s why there are lawyers... I, as a layperson, have no idea! Only now does my lawyer write that this is inadmissible.

I am not sure that your provider’s request is really inadmissible; there are many contradictory rulings on this topic. It may be that in the future it will be seen as inadmissible and accordingly the relevant laws will be changed or clarified/texts supplemented; currently, there is nothing about this in the Building Code nor VOB, if a private person is the AG. However, I am not a lawyer; what I write is solely based on experience in my job. You also must not withhold money intentionally – precisely for this reason many BUs demand a guarantee for the last payment installment – if your contract does not allow it. It is also useless if you post it here; I am not even sure that you are allowed to do so. It is equally useless if laypersons answer. You can try – that is my recommendation to you – to initiate a conversation with your expert at your provider and see if and how the knot can be untied. Everything else, in my opinion, will not get you any further. Rhineland regards

In the end, there remains the uneasy feeling ... no matter what .... of being "screwed over" by the contractor. And you can't do anything about it.... or you get a lawyer who only sees such clauses in the contract after signing.. Thank you all for your honest support... your advice has helped me more than the lawyer

You have - as far as you have published texts - no leverage to withhold funds!
Rhenish greetings on the road
Bauexperte

Stop! That is WRONG!
A consumer who has concluded a contract for the construction of a house must receive a security (e.g., guarantee) amounting to 5% before the first installment payment (§632a Construction Code).
If this does not happen, you can deduct the 5% from the total construction sum from the first installment payment or (initially) do not have to pay at all.

(3) If the customer is a consumer and the contract is for the construction or conversion of a house or a comparable building, the customer must be provided with a security for the timely completion of the work without significant defects in the amount of 5 percent of the remuneration claim at the time of the first installment payment. If the remuneration claim increases by more than 10 percent due to changes or additions to the contract, the customer must be provided with an additional security amounting to 5 percent of the additional remuneration claim at the next installment payment. At the contractor's request, the security is to be provided by withholding the installments in such a way that the customer withholds the installment payments up to the total amount of the security owed.

According to the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ((Case No.: VII ZR 191/12), it is even the case that if this security is not part of the contract, the entire payment schedule is VOID!
That means if your contract does not mention a 5% security FOR you, then you do not have to pay the agreed installments.
Rather, the contractual standard §632a paragraph 1 applies:

(1) The contractor may demand from the client an installment payment in the amount in which the client has gained an increase in value through the service performed as per the contract. Payment of the installment may not be refused due to insignificant defects. Section 641 paragraph 3 applies accordingly. The services must be substantiated by a statement which must enable a quick and reliable assessment of the services. Sentences 1 to 4 also apply to necessary materials or components that have been delivered or specially manufactured and provided, if ownership of the materials or components is transferred to the client at his choice or corresponding security is provided for them.

I would like to post some further links, but the strange rules of this forum do not allow that..

Hello,

You do realize that you are quite close to legal advice here?

I explicitly wrote "as far as you (OP) have published texts"! We simply cannot know exactly what has been agreed upon and what has not. If an expert has reviewed the draft contract, I initially assume that they know what they are doing. So if they did not warn the OP about any "pitfalls," it is not up to me/us to point out more.

As you may have noticed, the OP wants the concluded contract for work to be fulfilled; he wants to build with the provider. It therefore seems sensible to me to seek a conversation with the provider – together with the commissioned expert. Anything else makes no sense. The alternative was and is to involve a lawyer, but that probably wouldn’t change the declared intent of the OP. He cannot force the provider to do something they do not want; in the end, very probably, the contract would be dissolved (in my opinion the best solution), which the OP (so far) does not want, nor really wants to get confrontational.

I would like to post some additional links, but the weird rules of this forum don’t allow that..

I will not reopen this discussion; it is what it is.

Rhenish greetings

Hello construction expert Hello SirSydom. The only thing in the contract with 5% is the completion guarantee that is supposed to be handed over to me at the start of construction. There is no mention of §632 anywhere.