ÖbVI or consulting engineers – who may do what?

The one criterion

Surveying in Germany is split in two. There are measurements that change or bindingly establish a legal position – exactly where a boundary runs, how a plot is divided, where a finished building sits in the cadastre. These tasks are sovereign. In Hesse only publicly appointed surveyors (ÖbVI) or the state land management office may carry them out.

And there is everything else: measurements that serve as a basis for design, construction and documentation. That is engineering surveying, and consulting engineers like us do it.

Sovereign – you need an ÖbVI

• Boundary determination The binding record of where the boundary runs, with boundary appointments and the neighbours involved.
• Subdivision of a plot One parcel becomes two – that has to go into the cadastre.
• Building survey after completion In Hesse there is a statutory duty; the finished building is entered in the land cadastre.
• Official site plan with cadastral proofWhere the building authority expressly requires it.

Engineering surveying – that is us

• Topographic survey and digital terrain models as a basis for design.
• Level survey for the design, drainage and earthwork volumes.
• Setting out before and during construction – excavation, axes, building corners.
• River and structural surveying, cross sections, weirs, bridges, culverts.
• Quantity take-off, settlement monitoring, as-built documentation

The most common misunderstanding

Many private clients believe that setting out the house and the cadastral building survey are the same thing. They are not – and they even sit on opposite sides of the line:

• Setting out means: before construction, somebody transfers the approved drawing to the ground. Not required by law, but practically indispensable. That is us.
• Building survey means: after construction, the building is recorded in the cadastre. A statutory duty, and sovereign. That is an ÖbVI.

And if both are needed?

That is the normal case with a new build: we set out before construction, an ÖbVI records the building afterwards. Two commissions, two invoices, no conflict. Simply tell us what is coming up – if it is the sovereign part, we point you straight on rather than giving you an appointment that does not help.