Commissioning an independent Bausachverständiger before signing is ordinary practice for any German purchase. It matters more for the groups in this wiki than for a private buyer of a flat, for three reasons that compound.
Why the exposure is larger here
- The buildings are older and larger. A Mehrfamilienhaus carries roof, façade, Stränge, heating plant and often Denkmalschutz — failure modes whose cost is measured against the whole building, not one flat.
- The contract normally excludes liability. Almost every German resale contract is gekauft wie gesehen, excluding liability for material defects. That exclusion holds unless the seller fraudulently concealed the defect or gave a guarantee (§ 444 BGB), and the claim period is short (§ 438 BGB). In practice the buyer carries the building’s condition from the day of the Auflassung.
- The equity is already spent. Kaufnebenkosten run 7–14 % of the price and cannot normally be financed (see the
affordabilitytool). A group that has emptied its equity to get to the Notartermin has nothing left for a roof discovered in month four — and, unlike a single owner, cannot decide alone to borrow more.
What a survey is for in a group purchase
Not a pass/fail. Three outputs a group can actually act on:
- A Sanierungsstau figure to add to the capital plan before the price is agreed, not after.
- A negotiating instrument. A costed defect list is the normal basis for moving the price or splitting the work.
- A shared factual basis. Six households who have each formed a private view of the building will not converge without one; this is as much a governance instrument as a technical one.
Commission someone öffentlich bestellt und vereidigt (listed by the regional IHK or Handwerkskammer) and independent of the seller and the agent. Budget a low four-figure sum for a Mehrfamilienhaus and treat it as an acquisition cost, not an optional extra.
Open question (not a fact): this note gives no price. Surveyor fees are freely negotiated — there is no HOAI-style schedule for a Kaufberatung — and vary by region and building size. Get two quotes and record the real figure here.
Related
- zwangsversteigerung — where you cannot get inside at all, and the file is all there is
- grunderwerbsteuer-baugemeinschaft — the other cash the equity has to cover first
- gbr-baugemeinschaft, weg-baugruppe — who decides to commission, and who pays if the group then walks away