ᐅ Partial withholding until the trade is fully completed.

Hello everyone,
I need a brief legal opinion on whether my approach is allowed.
A trade at my single-family house has now been completed. The general contractor’s invoice arrived, and I have withheld the amount by 1,000 euros (approximately 1,100 US dollars) only. The reason is that there is still leftover debris to be cleared. For me, a trade is only complete when the construction site has been properly cleaned up. The scope of work explicitly states that all trades commissioned by the general contractor must remove their waste.
Of course, I could have mentioned this directly in the payment transfer but I forgot to do so. Now the question has arisen as to why 1,000 euros (approximately 1,100 US dollars) are missing. Before I reply, I wanted to quickly ask for your opinion.
Thank you

That was the wrong approach at first. You start by saying, "Tradesperson, please clear away your waste," and if nothing happens, you announce, "I will withhold X euros if you don't remove your stuff by day Y." If still nothing happens, then you can withhold the amount.

However, 1000€ sounds somewhat disproportionate—what else is still lying around?

I can’t say whether this is legally allowed, but I don’t think it’s right to withhold money without saying anything.
In my opinion, that’s just not appropriate.

After receiving the invoice, I would have first tried to have a conversation, in writing if necessary, if the waste wasn’t removed or if there had already been problems in the past.
How much waste are we talking about, and what kind of waste is it?

Of course, I should have announced it beforehand. But I’m annoyed that the items were simply left there and that the contractor’s side didn’t ensure they were cleared away. It’s not a huge amount overall. But working like this is still not acceptable.

The total amount was over 30,000 euros. The 1,000 euros is probably too much as well. It’s partly due to emotions caused by a lack of communication. Next time I will, of course, announce it in advance. I will also apologize for it.

I had already asked to have certain things removed. The response was that I would receive feedback. However, that hasn’t happened yet.

What makes you conclude that waste must be removed after each trade or before every invoice? It is quite common to collect packaging, scraps, etc., and then dispose of everything in a single trip. In our case, the site was briefly swept daily, but the "waste" was stored in one room and picked up all at once at some point.

As I understand it, everyone who generates waste takes it away again. The shell builder is responsible for their waste, the roofer for theirs, and so on. However, it could of course be that the company will clear everything up in the end. Due to a lack of clear communication, I decided to proceed this way out of emotion. Naturally, I will handle this differently in the future. Thank you for the feedback.