Start of construction after contract signing

Good evening everyone,

We signed a construction contract with a general contractor in December last year. Unfortunately, without execution deadlines (please don’t judge us, we know how stupid that was ourselves and could kick ourselves enough! :( )...
Now it is so that our developer knew that the building area would be developed in July and construction was supposed to start. We are building with 2 others in the same residential area with the same developer. However, he now says that construction will begin after the order is received. In other words: We signed the contract last, so construction will start last for us.
Now it is still the case that they are working on the first house with the bricklaying... Therefore, our construction is only supposed to start in 4-6 weeks!!! But then it will already be mid-November!

Do we have any legal grounds to set a deadline for him to start faster?

PS: He did the floor slabs for all three in 2 days. So ours has now been untouched for over 4 weeks.

Help! We are really desperate, as we also have the bank’s interest on the loan hanging over us.

Thanks for your help!

Since you have not recorded any data, you have no legal grounds. But as I understand it now, the work started 4 weeks ago (foundation slab), so I wonder why you are pushing? Nothing happens every day on a construction site.

Yes, sure: the commitment interest is looming. But honestly: these are the lowest costs that can be planned. There will very likely be more that were not calculated.

For you now a bit too late, but whoever doesn't have the commitment interest, hasn't factored it in, and/or is desperate because they don't know where the money is coming from, shouldn't build.

See it the way does. The start of construction (foundation slab) was at your place four weeks ago as well, right? And honestly, building in order of contracts is just fair. What would you say if you had signed first and the general contractor says "Well, the others pay more/are so nice/who knows, I'll start with them first"? You would complain too. So everyone in turn, and that's that. Your problems with the interest rates could be the others' problems too. PS: Without a deadline for the start, the general contractor could even work on other orders since he is relatively "free" with your start. So be glad he sticks to the order.

I would also say that some patience is appropriate here. If the [Bodenplatte] has already been poured, the earthworks have already been done - so work has already started. Unfortunately, there are always breaks.

In our case, it was a painfully long 3.5 weeks between the end of the earthworks and the [Bodenplatte] - and we only had 5 months left until moving in. We also became nervous (as happened many times later), but most of the time there is a reason for the break.

Do we have any legal grounds to set him a deadline to start faster?

Depends! If nothing has been agreed upon, the deadlines depend on the circumstances ;-). And the principle applies that the contractor must finish within a "reasonable" time.

How it is specifically in your case is not easy to assess from a distance and with the few (and formally legally contradictory [general contractor/developer]) information you have given. Usually, building a single-family house takes somewhere between 6 and 12 months (roughly). Within such periods, you can do nothing. Beyond that --> specialist lawyer for construction law, you won’t manage that on your own.

Of course, you can still take action, because as silly as it sounds, in my experience, annoying customers receive more help. If the customer does not make contact, everything seems to be fine. But if you call your site manager weekly in a friendly manner (!) to ask about progress and plans for the next week, eventually it will annoy him. Either he stops answering the phone :D or he makes sure to have good news for you at the next call.

Oh yes, at the moment it is widely the case that craftsmen have significantly more orders than capacity. So you are at a disadvantage and your general contractor (who presumably does little himself but uses subcontractors) is in the same boat as you. It is actually in both parties’ interest to finish quickly. The contractor gets a fixed sum from you, the faster the house is finished, the better for him (he can build the next house). So if it still takes "longer," it is probably not because your contractor is malicious.