For many, owning a home and settling down has long represented the "Luxembourg dream". But after years of skyrocketing property prices, this dream has slipped out of reach for a growing number of residents. Determined to pursue it nonetheless, Louise (not her real name) and her husband decided to move their family further away from Luxembourg City. After searching online, the couple settled on an off-plan house in Perlé, sold by property developer Higher Group. They signed the deed in April 2021.
"We very quickly had reasons to worry", Louise recalls. The first warning sign came when the developer announced that it was parting ways with one of its partners on the project, Defi Management. Construction then began to drag on, and "the excuses started piling up". Covid, the war in Ukraine, and rising construction costs: it was not long before buyers were being asked to pay more money.
"The developer claimed force majeure and asked us for an additional €120,000" to complete the construction, the mother recalls. The couple refused to give in to the demand, despite pressure from the company's director.
"He made it clear that if we didn't pay, construction would come to a halt", she adds. The Higher Group development involved the construction of four houses, including Louise's.
She was unable to confirm whether the other buyers had agreed to the demand. But for Louise and her husband, the decision was final. "We weren't going to give him a single euro more", she says.
Higher Group eventually went bankrupt at the end of 2023. By that stage, the company had already received more than €440,000 towards the construction of the expat couple's home.
"That was supposed to cover the kitchen, bathroom flooring and part of the roofing work. None of that work was ever carried out", Louise said.
The couple had also paid more than €300,000 for the land, along with €35,000 in notary fees. In total, they had spent nearly €800,000 on what amounted to the shell of a house, located an hour from Luxembourg City.
Unfortunately, Louise and her husband were in for further unpleasant surprises.
"We discovered that we didn't have a completion guarantee", she laments. "We should have been more careful."
Contrary to popular belief, a completion guarantee is also mandatory for houses purchased off-plan under a VEFA contract (vente en l'état futur d'achèvement). Under Luxembourg's Civil Code, this guarantee must be provided by the seller.
In this context, it is important to point out that the notary has a duty to verify the existence of the guarantee when the deed is signed – a duty that was evidently not fulfilled in this case.
It was another blow for the couple, who could see no way forward. They were living in an apartment in Luxembourg City, paying interest on an unfinished house and had no idea how to resolve their predicament.
For a year, Louise's husband tried everything to resolve their housing crisis: petitioning ministries, the local council, and even reaching out to politicians in search of help. Each time, the answer – when there was one – was always the same: "There is nothing we can do", Louise recalls, echoing the frustration expressed by other buyers who have recently spoken to RTL Infos. The couple were left to fend for themselves.
In late 2024, the couple were eventually approached by a resident of the municipality of Perlé who offered to complete all four houses – for a price.
For Louise and her husband's property, that price was set at €212,000.
"We had to take out another bank loan, and the terms were much less favourable", the mother of two explains. "We were told we were considered high-risk customers", she adds.
In early 2026, the couple finally moved into their house in Perlé. But the property was still missing doors, floor coverings and paintwork.
"“Given our financial constraints, we had to do some of the work ourselves", Louise explains.
There were also problems with work carried out during this second phase of construction. She recalls, for example, a hole in the wall that the new contractor said his painter would fill.
"There's a lot of dishonesty in the construction industry", she concludes.
Today, Louise and her family are among the few off-plan buyers affected by a developer's bankruptcy who have actually managed to move into their property. Through a combination of circumstances, they were able to complete the project.
But their financial situation is now critical.
"Our savings have vanished, we're up to our necks in debt, and there's nothing left from our salaries at the end of the month", she confides.
Both parents work full-time. "Everything we earn goes towards our mortgages. Any unexpected expense has become a real obstacle for us. When we go grocery shopping, we now have a very strict budget. And that's without even mentioning the stress and the impact it has had on our relationship. There were genuinely moments when we asked ourselves: what is going to happen to us?"
"The bank, the municipality, the government, elected officials – nobody wanted to help us."
Louise admits that she has considered leaving the Grand Duchy with her family. She is still deeply affected by the ordeal she has endured over the past few years.
"I will never build a house in Luxembourg again", she declares firmly. "Buyers have no protection."
Her view is shared by others who have spoken to RTL Infos in recent weeks as part of the series "When VEFA turns into a nightmare".
A demonstration is scheduled for Saturday at Place Clairefontaine in Luxembourg City, where participants will call for enhanced legal safeguards for those purchasing properties under the VEFA scheme, and support for buyers who have suffered losses in recent years. The government recently confirmed to RTL that a reform of the VEFA law is in preparation, though no specific details have been shared to date.
However, it is already known that any new legal provisions will not apply retroactively.
In practical terms, this means that buyers who lost out due to VEFA-related bankruptcies in recent years will not receive government support or compensation, even though the Ministry of Justice has acknowledged shortcomings in the current system designed to protect buyers in the event of a developer's insolvency.
Contacted by RTL Infos, the former director of Higher Group responded to the allegations.
He does not deny the delays or the additional payments demanded in the summer of 2023. However, he insists that the circumstances were beyond his control.
He attributes the delays first to a subcontractor deliberately abandoning the construction site in September 2022, and then to adverse weather conditions.
According to him, these events caused "four months of delays" for which his company was "not responsible".
As for the additional charges, he justifies them by pointing to the rise in construction costs between 2021 and 2022. In a letter he shared with RTL Infos, he explains to buyers that the prices quoted when they purchased their properties had originally been set in 2019 and subsequently reviewed in 2020. They therefore could not have reflected the price increases that followed the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
This, he says, was why the company invoked "force majeure".
He goes further, explaining that he asked for €120,000 per property, excluding VAT, at a time when competitors were reportedly requesting "much larger sums", ranging from €180,000 to €250,000.
We were unable to independently confirm or verify those figures.
"I sold the houses for between €527,000 and €568,000, for properties with 230 square metres of living space", he adds.
Regarding the reasons behind Higher Group's bankruptcy, he explains that rising prices for "all materials" had "inevitably" placed the company in financial difficulty.
He claims to have gone as far as injecting his own funds into the business in an attempt to turn things around, "but it wasn't enough".
He also referred to an unnamed individual, "who will know who they are", who had been tasked with finding investors and who allegedly jeopardised the company's financial stability through investment opportunities he described as "extremely dangerous".
Finally, he stressed that the "entire sector" suffered from market conditions in 2023.
And indeed, 2023 was the most devastating year for property developers and construction companies in Luxembourg.
But while many businesses fell victim to those conditions, numerous others managed to stay afloat despite the collapse in off-plan property development activity.
