So basically I can demand this calculation—and disregard her comment that she is not familiar with this standard. She believes this standard is not contractually relevant. [/] And that’s why we’ve been asking for calculations and so on for such a long time. I thought that one of the main tasks of an architect was cost monitoring. But she doesn’t acknowledge any of that, has never prepared a calculation, and as I said—a DIN 276 is unknown to her and she believes this is not a service owed. [/] That’s also my concern. That's why I tried to study the hoai—and my basic question is whether she really does not owe the DIN 276 at any point—I even personally wrote to her about it and received the answer that she is not familiar with it and does not have to provide it. [/] According to her statement, she doesn’t even have to know the costs in the end, since her fee refers to the eligible costs—which I thought also had to be calculated according to the DIN standard.
The low number of the standard already indicates how fundamental (and so old that even her grandparents could have told her about it) this standard is. The HOAI states this not only as a basic service (= mandatory, no optional extras!) including that it must not be done in just any way, but according to the methodology of this very specific standard. And it is placed in service phase 2, so with good reason (as you rightly suspect, because of its essential importance for estimating how much money you need to borrow and whether the goal is even achievable) very far at the front. Of course, contractual freedom remains that any “financial suicide” can explicitly agree to waive this. But a serious architect would have that madness confirmed before witnesses and in writing. Without this calculation, the fee is practically impossible to determine; then you would practically have to base it on the (then random) final result of the (widely exceeded) budget “according to measurement.” Does this architect think being an architect means “drawing little houses”?—as every child knows since a Sparkasse commercial, there are vast differences between the “house of Saint Nicholas” and the “house of Saint Nicholas Di-stel-mei-er.” What I don’t understand—since you spoke of monument funding—is who is supposed to have accepted a trivialization slip in this regard. No bark beetle, no corona and no Putin can justify that construction costs were additionally left to the method of “let’s just see” to free explosion. Did she finally even derive a claim to a correspondingly higher fee based on those costs exceeding the budget? If I were in your place, I would ask a lawyer familiar with architectural law how far a claim against the lady’s professional liability results here. After all, she admitted the breach of duty, but also the incompetence (but that does not relieve her professional liability insurance, so it is irrelevant to you whether the lady would be solvent for the amount of damages).
And now after completion of the construction—most of it is moot anyway—but don’t we have a claim to have the planner actually calculate the costs? She also denies that it was really that much higher. That’s why I thought this DIN was there to prevent or clarify something like this.
You are exactly right about the purpose of the standard. However, costs can no longer be curbed afterward. Her failure is therefore practically only relevant for your claim for damages. But be careful: construction disputes are regularly excluded by legal expenses insurance, and lawyers are generally paid according to the value in dispute (and good specialist lawyers are rarely available at RAG rates). Don’t let yourself end up in poverty trying to protect your father (that wouldn’t make him any happier). Have you even spoken with her chamber?—people like that at least should be removed from circulation before they destroy any more dreams. After all, architects enjoy a similar presumption of competence as doctors because they have studied their field and also require a kind of “licensing.” In any case, if I were you, I would shift the focus away from trying to obtain the theoretically owed calculation now at least for your own “review” (since that no longer helps). Substantively, you can explain by her unprofessional tender alone—service phase 5 alone accounts for 35% of the total fee according to the table—why it became so expensive; exact figures won’t help you (anymore). What I see as relevant now is only properly holding her accountable for her incompetence—as I said, without this backfiring.