Somebody buys a new house, moves in, and over six weeks finds doors that do not close, a radiator that was never connected, tiling that slopes and a garden with more rubble than soil.
She emails a list to the developer. Some of it is fixed, most of it is disputed, and she has no idea what she was entitled to expect.
The checklist
Publish these and buyers find the service before completion rather than after.
1. Explain what a snagging survey is
An inspection identifying defects, unfinished work and things not built to the expected standard. Buyers have never heard of it.
2. Explain why a new house needs one
Because new does not mean faultless, because volume housebuilding produces defects and because a buyer has a limited window to raise them.
3. Explain the timing
Before completion where access is allowed, or immediately afterwards. It is the most important practical advice and buyers discover it too late.
4. Explain the defect reporting period
That warranties typically include an initial period during which the developer addresses issues, and that a buyer should establish what applies to them.
5. Explain what a professional list achieves
That a documented, photographed, professionally prepared list is considerably harder to dismiss than a handwritten note, which is the whole value.
6. Publish what the survey covers
Room by room, externally, the garden, services and finishes. Buyers want to know how thorough it is.
7. Publish the cost
Against the price of the house, which makes it look negligible. It is the comparison that converts.
8. Explain what happens next
That the buyer submits the list, how developers typically respond and what to do about disputed items.
9. Explain the re inspection option
Whether you return to verify the work, which is what prevents items being marked complete when they are not.
10. Explain the access problem
That some developers restrict pre completion inspections, what to ask for and what to do if it is refused.
11. Explain the difference from a condition survey
Because buyers confuse them, and a new build needs a different service, which is the distinction in commercial survey and dilapidations enquiries territory for another sector.
12. Explain what falls outside
Structural matters covered by warranty, design decisions and anything requiring specialist investigation, as in damp and timber survey enquiries from worried owners.
13. Explain the later warranty stages
Because a warranty covers different things at different points, which is the ground in snagging and warranty questions after completion.
13b. Explain what buyers can do themselves
Before or alongside a professional inspection, buyers can photograph everything, date it and keep a written record from the day they move in. Giving somebody that instruction costs nothing and frequently produces the evidence that settles a dispute with a developer months later.
13c. Say how long the survey takes on site
Buyers arranging access around a developer's handover need to know whether somebody is there for an hour or most of a day. Publishing the duration, and when the report arrives afterwards, lets a buyer fit the inspection into a completion week that is already crowded.
14. Capture the completion date at enquiry
Because the timing determines everything, which is the structured capture in receptionist screening questions.
Getting started
Publish what a snagging survey covers, when it should happen and what it costs against the house price, then capture completion dates at any hour. SpideyChat for surveyors and architects answers from your published pages, plans are on the pricing page, and the chatbot ROI calculator works through the numbers.