Turnkey fixed price during Corona or cost increase?

Hello everyone,

a brief report on our construction project (planned groundbreaking May 10). Our house has increased in price by 30% compared to December 20 - so 5 months ago. The architect called us a few days ago and delivered the not-so-nice news. In numbers, we are now paying 170k more. Offer in December was approx. €596,000. Now approx. €770,000 - for the same house... the madness of what’s going on right now. Unfortunately, we already finalized the construction financing in January to secure the good terms, but unfortunately the bank insists on fulfilling the contract - additional financing, here we come ;-(

Best regards from Leipzig

Did you not have a fixed contract with the architect / general contractor before? Or are you awarding contracts individually?
Is there still a possibility to switch the executing company/companies?
30% sounds really VERY much. Before I would finance so much extra, I would consider whether I can do without something in the house? Or can you still easily afford the installment with 170k more?

We have an architect contract that does not set a fixed price on the trades, only provides a rough cost estimate. We will then also award everything individually. He increased our cost estimate by 30% because in another construction project, for which he received and evaluated all the prices last week, that was the final result. According to him, our houses are comparable. We will also send the award documents ourselves to other companies; unfortunately, our architect makes it easy for himself and only asks his buddies, with whom he has been working for over 20 years.

We are already almost at the limit with financing, would then push it to the max, and are lucky that the difference could be received from the parents as an early inheritance. We also don't want to give up on as much as possible, and as couch potatoes, we don't dare to do any own work (except painting) :(