The machine never assesses, never concludes, and never estimates a value.
A Bausachverständiger doing Bauschäden and Beweissicherung, one specialising in Verkehrswertgutachten, and one who does mostly Wohnungsübergaben and small defect reports. All three are personally liable for every sentence they sign, and this single fact determines the entire shape of what I am allowed to build.
The site work takes three hours and the writing takes eight. Photos have to be numbered, placed and cross-referenced. Defects have to be described in the standard formulation. Norms have to be cited exactly. The structure has to be the same every time because a court expects it to be. And it must be defensible line by line under cross-examination, so it is written slowly, at night, twice.
- Capturing photos on site with automatic numbering, location, timestamp and the spoken note attached
- Turning dictated observations into structured defect entries with photo references
- Maintaining the standard-formulation library — your own tested wordings
- Assembling the report into the fixed structure with photos placed and cross-referenced
- Retrieving the applicable norm text with exact citation
- For valuations: collecting comparables, Bodenrichtwert, and the arithmetic of the chosen method
- The diary of Fristen, appointments and Aktenzeichen, and the Kurzfassung from the long report
- The cause of the defect
- The assessment. The valuation. The conclusion
- What is defensible in court
- The site capture app
- Photograph, speak, move on. Each photo carries its number, room, timestamp and spoken note. The site visit stops producing a pile of untagged images that must be reconstructed from memory two days later — which is where most of the eight hours actually goes, and where most errors enter.
- The defect structurer
- Dictated notes become structured entries in your own standard wording, drawn from your own library, with the correct photo references already attached. You read and correct every one.
- The formulation library
- Your tested wordings, indexed by defect type. Not generated language — your language, which has already survived scrutiny. This is the distinction that makes the whole thing acceptable: retrieval of proven text, not generation of new text.
- The norm retriever
- Exact text with citation. Never a paraphrase — a paraphrased norm in a Gutachten is a gift to opposing counsel.
- The comparables gatherer
- For valuations: assembled, sourced, dated, with the arithmetic shown. The choice of method and the adjustments remain yours.
Raw stays raw, and the verdict is always yours.
This is the hardest stop in the entire practice and the least negotiable, because you sign and you are liable, potentially in court, personally. Cause of damage: never proposed — the system records the observation and stops. Valuation: never produced; it gathers inputs and performs stated arithmetic. Severity or classification: never assigned. Every sentence in the final document was either written by you or retrieved verbatim from your own approved library and then confirmed.
One further rule surprises people: the system keeps an audit trail of what was captured when, and the raw material stays unaltered. If a report is challenged you must be able to show the original photograph, the original timestamp and the original spoken note. Machine-improved photographs, tidied notes and reconstructed timestamps would all be catastrophic.
Hours per report — eight down to about three, all of them now spent on assessment rather than layout. Days from site visit to delivered report. Photo referencing errors: zero. Reports per month at unchanged quality.
Any request to draft the assessment section, however hedged. Also any request to work from another Gutachter’s formulations — the library must be your own, or the wording carries no authority when tested.
Talking on site rather than writing at night.
Eight hours of writing for three hours of site work, and most of the eight was photographs, numbering, and cross-referencing. I photograph and speak on site now and each image carries its number, its room and my note. The report assembles itself into our fixed structure and I spend my time on the assessment, which is the only part that is actually mine. He would not let the system propose a cause of damage under any framing, and since I sign these and I am liable personally, that was the answer I needed to hear.
The rule that convinced me was that the raw material stays untouched. Original photograph, original timestamp, original spoken note, all preserved, because if a report is challenged I have to be able to produce them. The formulation library is my own wording, extracted from my own past reports, not language invented by a machine — that distinction is the whole reason this is usable in my field. Three hours per report instead of eight.
Tell me what your week looks like.
I'll tell you honestly which parts you can hand over — and which you can't.