Subcontract before purchasing the property?

EDIT: I just remembered that I could also provide a notarization from the bank - that can be done within one to two weeks time-wise and shows the bank that it can disburse the loan before it is recorded in the land register. That should be much faster then.

Bank, property, etc. is not the only risk. When we signed our contract with the shell builder, it was said that it could start at the beginning of November. Then something came up and we were postponed to December, then it was said that it was no longer worth starting before Christmas, then January and February were too cold, and at some point in March it finally got started... It goes like this in 2 out of 3 cases. A commitment from a general contractor is worth just as much.

All right – we will certainly pay our dues. Currently, I simply assume that if the general contractor tells me it will work, we plan accordingly and assume that we are not being lied to. Especially because he has an excellent reputation among customers, suppliers, and building authorities in the region.

I don't want to spread fears. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes well. But there are also people who terminate their rental contract before the ink on the paper is dry and for whom a double financial burden after 12 months threatens their existence. If neither applies to you, you can be completely calm.

I don't want to spread fear. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that everything will be fine. But there are also people who terminate their rental agreement before the ink is dry on the paper, and for whom a double financial burden after 12 months threatens their existence. If neither applies to you, then you can be completely relaxed.

I’m actually glad about the various warnings here – with all the impressions and appointments, one sometimes loses sight of what’s important.

However, we live directly with the landlords (flexible termination) – fortunately, this is not a problem. A double financial burden still hurts, of course – whether you can afford it or not. It’s just money wasted unnecessarily.

I believe that before winter your shell structure in your situation probably won't be sealed anymore, so that the "interior trades" could continue afterwards. That means you will likely have a winter break in between. Construction start in June or July and everything will be fine, no question! But:

were just with the general contractor this week and discussed the schedule. Completion within the next four to six weeks would still fit within this year.

The general contractor is only waiting for your signature, he would never say "hmm, well, it might be tight this year" because the risk that you run to a competitor if everything is going to take longer anyway is way too high.

Just a quick note from our experience:

Land purchase --> land registration took over 3 months because the key person there was sick. Isn't there a deputy? Apparently not! I mean, WTF?

But that's all preliminaries; the actual construction start was also not as easy as expected:

We also had a development plan with an exemption instead of a building application, but: the planning went in several phases: tender planning (you have completed that), approval planning for construction notification was somewhat tougher because there were issues like emergency exits vs. electric shutters = additional costs and such stories on the table. Then comes the detailed planning or execution planning, structural engineering, ventilation system planning, drainage plan, roof truss plan and who knows what else. All in iterative loops, since for example the statics required a thicker slab and reinforcements, which slightly affected the floor plan, which in turn changed the statics and so on and so forth. At times it felt somewhat slow to me. Then the surveyor has to do the rough survey/fine survey on call, more time might pass here as well... time that in the ideal process of your general contractor might be a bit tight.