The German Property Federation (ZIA) has issued an official statement on the ministerial draft bill by the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) regarding Building Type E. While the umbrella organisation supports the political objective of noticeably simplifying construction processes and lowering costs, it cautions that the current version of the bill misses this target.
According to the industry association, the so-called Building Type E must become the statutory default for cost-effective construction with legal certainty. ZIA Chief Executive Aygül Özkan stressed that the new regulation presents a key opportunity to adapt construction contract law to the requirements of modern, economical building practice. However, if the standard remains designed merely as an exception requiring explicit justification, this potential will not be realised.
Core elements for workable regulations
To shape the framework effectively, the association proposes a series of specific adjustments affecting both contractual application and administrative burden:
- —Introduction of an opt-out model: Building Type E should serve as the baseline standard. Anyone building to this statutory basic standard must not be required to provide separate justifications or labelling.
- —Abolition of the requirement to prove cost savings: Determining hypothetical cost savings during early planning stages is rarely reliable and creates new documentation and liability risks.
- —Legal certainty across the contractual chain: A uniform national statutory model clause should ensure the transparent description of standards, particularly noise insulation levels, for purchase and rental agreements.
- —Preservation of nationwide framework conditions: Additional minimum standards imposed by individual federal states should be avoided to prevent divergent civil-law approaches and ensure that serial and modular construction methods remain scalable.
Warning against new bureaucratic obstacles
The association directs particular criticism at the planned requirement to explicitly set out saved construction costs. This stipulation burdens developers and planners with additional bureaucratic hurdles instead of accelerating procedures. In the ZIA's view, high construction costs in Germany stem primarily from a regulatory framework that has continuously grown in complexity over many years.
Aygül Özkan warned that laborious calculations regarding putative savings lead neither to simpler nor to more affordable construction. Instead, the cost breakdowns envisaged in the draft would create more red tape, increased workloads, and additional costs, running diametrically counter to the original intention of Building Type E.
