Property transfer tax - What has the greatest impact?

Hello everyone,

I have a question about real estate transfer tax and hope you can help me.

The situation is as follows:

We have reserved a plot of land with the municipality. Payment does not have to be made yet, which is why we have now started the first appointments with general contractors. Our idea was that once we have a concrete offer, we would go to the bank and jointly finance the required amount for the land purchase and house construction.

Now we are unsure whether, because we already have a concrete house construction plan, we will have to pay the real estate transfer tax on the entire purchase price, meaning both house and land.

The two parties are not economically connected, but regarding real estate transfer tax, you often read about the temporal connection between purchase and construction, which can be decisive for the calculation.

Does anyone have experience with this?

Is it sufficient to sign the house construction contract after the land purchase in order to avoid the problem? Or should the land purchase be handled separately beforehand, even if this entails higher effort (land charge, variable loan, etc.)?

If the municipality sells the property and there is no obligation to a predetermined construction partner or it builds itself, I don't see a problem there.

You won't sign any contracts anyway until after you have actually purchased, right?

land sellers and house builders must not be the same company or work directly together. if the land comes from the municipality, there can actually be no problems there, since a municipality itself does not construct houses.

Thank you for your answers. That already reassures me.

Can someone describe the optimal procedure in our case?

I think it goes like this:
After the appointments with several house construction companies, we choose the one that makes us the best offer.
With this offer, we go to the bank and arrange the financing for the land and house construction.
Then we go to the notary with the municipality, and once that is finalized, we sign the contract with the [GU].

Sounds good, as long as you have a guarantee on the property for that long (so reserved or something similar). It is definitely correct to push the signature from the general contractor as far back as possible. Also, don’t sign any preliminary contracts or anything like that, it’s not necessary at all. With KfW, they will put a few obstacles in your way :)