The Building Expert in the German Law

"There is a wide range of activity field for building experts. Nevertheless the German law contains only a few regulations concerning building experts. The three most important activity fields will be presented. Often, the building owner and the building expert enter into a private contract to check, if all obligations by the construction company are really fulfilled. The most important point for the building experts is to look for building defects. Only if there are no or only negligible defects, the owner will accept the building work und pay the total price. Sometimes the building expert is required to write an arbitration report. Many private construction contracts contain arbitration clauses. The goal of these clauses is to avoid, that the parties have to go immediately to an official court in case of a dispute. By accepting the result of the building expertís arbitration report the parties quickly resolve their dispute. An important activity field for building experts is to compile an expertís report for a court. In this case the building expert is not assigned by the parties, but by the court. Usually the members of a court themselves will not be able to judge if a building defect really exists or not. To fill this lack of knowledge, they depend on the building expertís report. Often the result of this report represents the basis for the courtís final decision.""