Your dream home independently designed

Yes. Germany places no restriction on property ownership by nationality – any foreign national can be entered in the land register (Grundbuch) as owner of a plot and build on it. You do not need German citizenship and you do not need permanent residence to own land.

The real hurdles are financing, contracts and the planning process, not ownership itself.

No. Ownership and building permission are not linked to residence status. Financing is where residence matters: with an EU passport or a permanent residence permit most banks treat you like any German applicant, while with an EU Blue Card or a time-limited permit they typically ask for 20 to 30 per cent equity.

Plan the equity question early, because it decides your budget long before it decides your design.

Yes, but you need someone who does. Development plans, building applications, construction contracts and correspondence with the building authority are all in German and legally binding in German – translations do not change that.

We handle the entire process with you in English, including planning, reviewing the construction contract and communication with authorities and manufacturers. The documents stay German; the understanding is yours.

Four, in this order. Financing without a permanent residence permit. Understanding the development plan before buying a plot. Reading a Baubeschreibung well enough to see what a quote does not include. And the fact that in Germany the design has to follow the plot, not your idea of the house.

None of these are unsolvable. All of them get expensive if you discover them after signing something.

That depends on what is available where you want to live. In many areas an existing house needs a full energy retrofit, which is often more expensive and less predictable than a new build – and new builds can access KfW funding that renovations only partly qualify for.

What a new build gives you above all is a house designed around how your family actually lives, rather than around a previous owner's decisions.

Ask the municipality for the development plan (Bebauungsplan) for that plot, or for written confirmation that none exists. It sets the building envelope, the permitted floor area, the number of storeys, the roof shape and the heights.

If no development plan exists, § 34 BauGB applies: your house has to fit into the character of the surrounding buildings. That is more open but also less predictable, which is exactly when a preliminary inquiry is worth its cost.

Yes, and that is the cheapest hour you will spend on the project. The architect reads the development plan, applies setback areas and permitted floor area to your plot and tells you what volume is realistically achievable before you commit to anything.

Bring this up in the free initial consultation, particularly if you are choosing between two plots.

You can, but it rarely pays off. Without a plot there is no orientation, no slope, no setback geometry and no development plan – the very constraints a good design is built on.

What does make sense is a feasibility check on a plot you are considering: it tells you whether the house you want is permitted there at all.

Yes, and this is where custom planning clearly beats a catalogue house. Slopes, narrow terraced plots, acute angles, protected trees or awkward access are design tasks, not obstacles.

A standard catalogue house fits such plots only through expensive compromises, or not at all.

Then the design is developed inside those limits from day one. Restrictions on roof pitch, ridge height, permitted storeys or facade materials shape the house, but they very rarely prevent a good one.

The problem is never a strict development plan. The problem is discovering it after you have already chosen a house.

The official site plan or at least the parcel number and cadastral district, the development plan or the municipality's written information, a rough idea of the living space and rooms you want, and your budget. Anything missing we work out together in the first call – nobody expects you to arrive with a complete file.

Yes. A German prefab house is not a product off a shelf; it is a house prefabricated in a factory. What gets prefabricated is defined by the planning. In timber frame construction the layout, external dimensions, roof shape and window positions are freely designable within the structural system and the development plan.

This is exactly what Architecture Online is built for: the design comes from your plot, not from a catalogue.

Yes, as a starting point. Bring the sketch, the plan or the house you photographed on holiday. The architect checks what of it is permissible on your plot under German regulations and develops it into a design that can actually be approved and built.

Plans drawn abroad are almost never approvable in Germany unchanged, mostly because of setback rules, energy requirements and the development plan – but they are a very good brief.

Within the development plan, yes. Interior layout, ceiling heights, window formats and materials are largely open. What is often constrained is the exterior: many development plans prescribe roof shape, roof pitch, ridge height and sometimes facade colour, which is what makes German suburbs look consistent.

The honest answer is that you can usually get the house you want on the inside, and a negotiated version of it on the outside.

Only if the development plan allows it. Many older plans prescribe a pitched roof with a defined pitch range; newer plans and areas under § 34 BauGB are often more permissive. This is one of the first things to check for a plot, because it decides the entire character of the house.

Yes. The design is set up so that an efficiency house standard can be built on it, and it allows the confirmation of application (BzA) you need for KfW funding. The energy calculations themselves are produced by a certified energy efficiency expert rather than by the architect – we organise that for you.

Efficiency standards and QNG certification also matter for the interest rate you get, so this is worth deciding early rather than late.

Far more than most people expect. Non-load-bearing walls are free, external dimensions are adjustable, windows and doors can be positioned individually and the roof form follows the regulations rather than the catalogue. Two to three rounds of revisions are normal until the design fits.

Yes. The whole planning process with us runs in English – video calls, drawings discussed live, comments and revisions by email. You do not need to translate anything yourself, and you do not need to be in Germany for it.

Yes. Design Development is fully digital and location-independent, so clients regularly complete the design before relocating. What you do need on the ground at some point is the plot, and later a bank account and financing in Germany.

Usually not. What the architect needs is reliable data: boundaries, levels, the slope of the ground, existing structures and the connection points. A local surveyor records all of that on site and passes it to the planning office digitally – more precisely than any site visit by the architect could. That is how we handle most projects.

An additional site visit costs travel time and normally adds no information the survey does not already contain. For pronounced slopes, difficult existing structures or unusual neighbouring situations we discuss it case by case.

The building application itself must be in German – drawings, forms and calculations are submitted in German to the building authority, and that is not negotiable. What happens in English is your side of the process: the design work, the explanations, the decisions and the review of contracts.

In practice you get German documents you actually understand, because they were discussed with you in English first.

You need someone with Bauvorlageberechtigung – the legal authorisation to submit building documents. In every federal state that is held by registered architects and certain qualified engineers; the exact scope is set by state building law. We work with authorised planners nationwide, so your plot can be anywhere in Germany. Anyone may design a house; only an authorised planner may sign and submit the application as Entwurfsverfasser.

That authorised planner is included in our Planning Approval package. It is also the reason a design prepared abroad cannot simply be handed in at a German building authority.

Formally you are the Bauherr (client) and the application is made in your name, but it is prepared and signed by the authorised planner and normally lodged by them with the local building authority. You sign, they submit and they handle the correspondence and any queries from the authority.

For a new detached house, in practice yes. Procedures differ between federal states – some use a simplified approval procedure – but construction may only begin once the permit has been issued, and it is issued on the basis of a complete application. There is no meaningful way to build around this step.

Design Development costs 1,590 € including VAT. It corresponds to service phase 2 under the German fee scale HOAI and includes dimensioned floor plans, living space calculation, elevations, cross-section, the position of the house on the plot with setback areas and a detailed project calculation.

Planning Approval costs an additional 4,980 € including VAT and corresponds to phases 3 and 4: all building application documents, submission to the authority and support through to the permit.

Because the scope is different. A classical architect's contract often covers HOAI phases 1 to 9 including tendering, awarding contracts and site supervision. Here you pay for the phases you actually need in order to decide, finance and get approval – with a prefab house the manufacturer takes over detailed design and site management.

The fully digital process without site visits and travel does the rest.

With many manufacturers they are, you just cannot see them – the planning sits inside the price per square metre. That sounds convenient and has two drawbacks: you do not know what you are paying for it, and you only get it if you build with that company.

We show planning and house price separately. Transparent as the windows, as we put it – and that has to apply to our own fee first of all.

Yes. If you realise the project through our partner company, no advance payment for Design Development is required. And if you already bought the Prefab Home Roadmap, its purchase price is credited in full against the Design Development. The Roadmap is included in the Design Development anyway.

Nothing is payable before the first meeting – the initial consultation by video call is free. If no planning contract follows, you pay nothing. Even after commissioning, you can cancel free of charge by informal email up to the point where design work begins.

Architectural and planning fees count as ancillary construction costs (Baunebenkosten) and are generally recognised by German banks as part of the total investment. Whether and to what extent your bank finances them is decided case by case on your overall calculation.

The living space calculation from the Design Development exists precisely for that conversation with the bank.

Yes, that is the entire point. Commissioning the Design Development creates no contractual obligation towards any construction company. You can have several manufacturers quote on the same design and compare the offers properly, and you can hand the Planning Approval phase to a different architect.

You receive the drawings and the right to use them for your building project, with any manufacturer and any architect you choose. Copyright in the design remains with the architect who created it, as with any architectural service in Germany. For your purposes nothing changes: you can build that house with whoever you like.

No. There is no obligation, no right of first refusal and no clause tying you to us or to a manufacturer. We earn a commission when a project goes ahead – but we do not sell planning as bait with a lock-in attached.

Both, and we say so openly. The planning is performed by the architects and invoiced separately. If a house project follows, we are paid by the manufacturer out of their sales budget, without the house becoming more expensive for you.

That is why the advance payment for Design Development is waived if you build through our partner company. What we do not do is hide planning costs inside a price per square metre.

Yes. Alongside detached and semi-detached houses we plan multi-family timber frame buildings, including multi-storey and QNG-certified projects. For investment properties the design brief changes: unit mix, circulation and floor area efficiency decide the return.

Yes, everything on this page is also available in German at Architektur Online. Many of our international clients build together with a German partner, so both versions exist deliberately.