ᐅ No groundbreaking yet, but already problems with the construction company

Hello dear forum community,

I just need to vent a little. As mentioned in the headline, we haven't even broken ground yet, but I'm already frustrated with the construction company. We are building with Town & Country and originally didn’t want to build with them, but because of the plot of land, we were tied to this company. Maybe this is all normal, but I just feel like I’m being taken for a ride...

We’re all probably aware that building a house is expensive. We also know that Town & Country doesn’t represent the luxury segment of homebuilding (and they’re not exactly cheap either). So why am I upset right now? First of all, we have absolutely no cost transparency. We want a decentralized ventilation system instead of a central one. During the sales meeting, they said that a decentralized system is not an option for our house type or that they had bad experiences with it. Since this was very important to us, the salesperson said he would call the heating contractor again to see if there might be another possibility. Well, we then received an email stating that we would have to pay an additional 3,000€ (about 3,300 USD) and would get a decentralized ventilation system. After the planning meeting with the managing director, this statement was revoked and he said he would send us an offer. Well, that 3,000€ then turned into 10,000€. We complained, and then suddenly it was 6,000€ plus 2,000€ for the basement. What am I even supposed to believe at this point?

Then there was the issue with ordering extra windows. During the sales meeting, I wanted to include all additional windows we planned to have. But I was told to sort that out with the architect later, and that the surcharge for windows would only be the material cost… Now we are being asked to pay 950€ (about 1,050 USD) for upgrading from standard to floor-to-ceiling windows and 1,750€ (about 1,940 USD) for an additional floor-to-ceiling window. The prices seem extremely expensive to me, and I’m just not willing to be taken advantage of like this. In the construction contract, we already included 4 additional windows, but these were never accounted for in the pricing… I’m just so frustrated and we haven’t even properly started yet.

How do you see the window costs? Are these normal prices? Maybe I’m not yet fully in the building mindset and haven’t gotten used to additional costs, but it just seems very expensive to me.

Thanks for listening.