Document defects.
With photos. With timestamps.

Those Who Don't Document, Lose

A house build is the largest financial project in most people's lives. At the same time, it's the project where errors happen most frequently – and are hardest to prove when the contractor denies everything.

German courts recommend timely, structured documentation of building defects. Whoever only records defects weeks later in a memory protocol has a harder time proving when the defect occurred. BauTagebuch solves this problem: every entry automatically receives a timestamp when created. Photos are assigned to trades. The construction phase structure shows in which section of the project a defect appeared.

The result is chronological documentation that you can export to PDF at any time – structured, complete, traceable. What a court or expert thinks of it in a specific case is outside the app. But complete documentation is the foundation for any next step.

Keeping a construction diary: what belongs in it every day

A construction diary is the daily record of your building site — and, if a dispute arises, your most reliable witness. The more precisely you keep it, the less can be denied later. For every day of work on site, at least the following should be captured:

• Date and weather — temperature and conditions are often decisive for concrete, plaster and screed work
• Trades and companies present, along with the number of workers on site
• Progress made — which works were started, continued or completed
• Defects and anomalies, ideally with a photo and the exact location
• Deliveries and materials that arrived on site
• Obstructions and delays, with the reason and the time they occurred

Paper notebooks or Excel sheets can cover this, but they are rarely to hand when it matters. BauTagebuch walks you through the same fields every day — with photo, timestamp and location straight from your phone, cleanly assigned to the relevant day of work.

Documenting defects — and securing your claims

Anyone commissioning a build enters into a works contract. If the work is defective, § 634 BGB grants you tiered rights: subsequent performance, self-remedy, price reduction, withdrawal or damages. Which of these you can invoke depends on the situation, but in almost every case the condition is the same — that you can prove the defect concretely, with the time, the place and an image.

The moment of acceptance (§ 640 BGB) is a turning point: from here the limitation period begins, and the burden of proof can shift to your disadvantage. Defect claims for buildings generally expire after five years under § 634a BGB. A gap-free construction diary with dated photos is valuable for exactly this reason: it records what was visible and when — long before it ever comes to a dispute.

Whether a specific defect founds your claim, and to what extent, depends on the individual case. In earnest, the legal assessment is made by a construction surveyor or a construction-law lawyer; the app gives you the ordered, dated body of evidence to support it.

How to document on site properly

Good construction documentation is a routine, not something reconstructed after the fact. The aim is a continuous, dependable record rather than a handful of photos taken once things go wrong. Here is how to go about it in a structured way:

• Be on site regularly: record progress at short, fixed intervals — not only once something catches your eye.
• Hidden components first: photograph pipes, insulation and waterproofing before they are covered up — afterwards they are invisible.
• With a scale and context: a folding rule or a known object in the frame makes cracks and deviations easy to gauge.
• Date and location automatically: every entry receives its timestamp and assignment — without you having to note it down.
• Don't gloss over small things: document the minor details too; only their sum later gives the full picture.

Over the weeks, this builds a gap-free chronicle — from the foundation slab to acceptance, with every stage of the build documented as it happened. If it comes to a dispute, you hold not a memory protocol reconstructed long afterwards, but dated facts that stand on their own.

More help for homeowners and builders

Construction documentation doesn't end at the shell. Whoever wants to document damp and mould, record meter readings at handover or create a handover protocol is working on the same principle.