ᐅ The screed in four rooms is 1.5 to 2 cm too high.

Hello everyone,

I need some advice. We recently built a new house, and in the upper floor, all rooms except the bathroom were supposed to have a screed that is 0.5cm (0.2 inches) higher than the hallway. The hallway and stairs have real wood flooring, the rooms have laminate...

Everything was ordered through the architect and was documented by email.

For whatever reason, the screed in the four rooms (about 60sqm (645 sq ft) total) is 2–2.5cm (0.8–1 inch) higher than the hallway.

The screed company denies any responsibility and literally says they “won’t do a single move in the house” again. If I withhold part of the final payment (4,000€), they might take legal action.

We currently have the following options:

- Leave everything as is and accept a threshold of 1.5–2cm (0.6–0.8 inches).
- Use leveling compound in the hallway, but then the last step of the stairs would be 1.5cm (0.6 inches) higher, which is not acceptable. The height would need to be distributed exactly across all steps. The extra work plus leveling compound would cost me about 500€.
- Grind down/sand the floors in all rooms (60sqm (645 sq ft)) by 1.5–2cm (0.6–0.8 inches) and then apply leveling compound on top. Would this be precise enough? Completely removing the screed is not an option due to underfloor heating.

With the last option, the ceiling height, window sill height, and switch height would be as originally planned.

Would this be a reasonable position in court if they sue for the money? For your information, I have legal protection insurance for construction law that I arranged before the build...

Ideally, our move-in date should not be delayed too much.

What would you do in our situation?

Thanks in advance...