Maengel, Abnahme and the Verjaehrung clock

Walk the building trade by trade well before the acceptance date and put every defect straight into the list: what is wrong, the room or axis it sits in, a photo, and the trade that owns the fix.

Mengapa: A defect written on a slip of paper and typed up three weeks later is a defect the trade disputes. Location plus photo, captured while you are standing in front of it, is what turns a complaint into something enforceable.

Re-inspect every item the trade reports as done, close the ones that genuinely pass and reopen the ones that do not, and mark the few that will stay open as exceptions both sides have agreed to carry into the protocol.

Mengapa: The acceptance appointment is the worst possible place to discover an open list. Every item closed and proven beforehand is one that cannot be reserved against you, held against your payment, or used to refuse acceptance outright.

Run the acceptance walk with the client and record the Abnahmeprotokoll: the date, who was present, what was accepted, which defects are reserved, and any contract penalty the client wants to keep. Both sides sign it.

Mengapa: This one document decides more than any other on the project: risk passes, the final payment falls due, the burden of proof turns to the client, and the Verjaehrung starts on its date. A defect not reserved in it, and a contract penalty not reserved with it, is one nobody can raise afterwards.

Open the contract, establish whether VOB/B was validly agreed or the job runs as a plain BGB Werkvertrag, and record the limitation period that follows: four years for building works under VOB/B, five under the BGB, counted from the Abnahme date in the protocol.

Mengapa: The two regimes are a full year apart, and assuming the wrong one either hands the client a year you never owed or writes off a claim that was still alive. Reading it off the contract once, at the Abnahme, is what makes every deadline after it trustworthy.

Register the reserved defects and everything reported after handover against the party obliged to fix it, each with the warranty that covers it and the date its period runs out.

Mengapa: A defect phoned in to a caretaker and written into nobody's list is a defect the owner quietly ends up paying to fix. One register is what keeps every claim attached to the party that owes it for as long as the period runs.

Work the deadline register: the day each limitation period ends, the date a notified defect must be remedied by, and the counter-deadlines you set the contractor. Issue the Maengelruege in writing, with a deadline to put it right.

Mengapa: A claim raised one day after the period has run out is worth nothing, however well it was documented. A written notice sent while the period is still open is what preserves the claim, and the remedy deadline you set with it is what turns it into work on site rather than correspondence.