What is your goal? To find someone in the forum who agrees with you? Maybe you are right and the general contractor (GU) is a trickster; and then...? Then be happy that you recognized it already and end the thing with him immediately? Many only realize it halfway through or way too late, you are at an advantage! It’s easy to encourage you to keep fighting when one doesn’t have to bear the consequences. Being right and getting your way.....
Now the knives are being sharpened. What use is that to you? As I read this gradually, I wonder why you are still there. Tell me, why haven’t you switched long ago? What I also wonder about regarding this statement:
Oh, the floor plan/layout/location of the rooms does not need to be discussed separately. We are satisfied with it. We will build it exactly like my parents’ house.
You wonder whether to open a can of worms and repeatedly write that you are clearly right here and suspect malicious intent behind the GU’s actions. Maybe you should also (not only) question your own decision to build a floor plan of completely different people (you are not a copy of your parents) even “EXACTLY” (quote) the same. That is already contradicted by this statement of yours:
It was like this: my wife and I first created our own sketch, according to our ideas for the layout of the rooms and spaces, even before looking for the right building partner. Simply amateurishly on the PC.
So what now? It’s your business but it also shows how quickly communication can sound completely different in a few posts and exactly in this gray area a problematic communication between the GU and you might have occurred. I do criticize the GU and craftsmen quite clearly sometimes, also based on my own experiences, but I always look for my share in it as well. I really don’t know anyone who would build their own house a second time “exactly” (quote), because everyone finds something about their own build or changes ideas and needs. Why do you assume that your parents found the philosopher’s stone back then with their old plan, which you can now build exactly many years later, which strikes me as a bit odd. But – it’s okay to be odd, and maybe the GU is odd too, who knows, and then boom. I don’t like being treated badly either, but then I change horses, even if it costs money, because my well-being is too important to me for that. Where is the critical consideration of your parents’ planning, who built that on a different plot and under different circumstances back then? Surely something is not quite optimal there as well, which you can see quite quickly looking at the plan, but apparently that is almost sacred to you and considered perfect. Of course, you don’t have to discuss it, but in my opinion, it would be just as necessary there as with the GU, because I also see a lot of money wasted due to planning weaknesses in your plan.
At least I could simply say that I don’t want the KfW 40 stuff anymore.
I don’t see that as “stuff” but as one of the most important components of a new build. What I find lacking in the whole project is rather the idea behind it: what is my goal with the house, how do I want to live, instead of just being annoyed about the 8 sqm while living in a copy of your parents’ house. Understandably, you miss a few square meters, that can be clarified in a direct conversation, but look at your bathroom or the children’s rooms where over many years some square meters have been wasted without any added value by you or your parents. A bathroom, in particular, usually looks bad if it’s too big, as here; by contrast, the staircase feels rather cramped right up to the top like one in a dwarfs’ house. Why don’t you question such things as critically? Also check the measurements of your furniture and thus the functionality of your ground floor rooms with windows/doors etc. instead of just getting hung up on one thing here alone.
But if the planning cuts 6% of living space just because he doesn't want to recalculate the statics?
Accusing a lack of motivation from a distance is a blatant assumption. It could be laziness, greed for money, or something explainable. We don’t know that, but hopefully find out after a conversation with the GU. But if it starts with a shouted accusation of laziness, I have an idea of the result. Recommending a sledgehammer method to others may be funny, but it helps the affected party little or rather harms them, or will you help them if your method fails? Do you have a solution for him or a better GU? Then come on, share it.