Snagging Checklist Template: The New-Build List the Developer Can't Wave Away

A snagging checklist is the list of defects in a newly built home, written down room by room so the developer can put them right: unfinished work, poor finishes, things that don't work and anything unsafe. It's done at or around handover, either by the buyer or by a professional snagger, and it ends in a list the developer signs off one item at a time. Snagging is the word used in the UK, Ireland, the UAE and Australia; in the US the same job is a punch list or a new-construction walk-through.

This page walks it in the order you'd actually do it, outside first, then inside from the top floor down. A list written in the order you happened to notice things is one the developer's site team can't work from, and that list doesn't get finished.

When to snag

There are two moments, and if you can, use both.

Before completion (or at handover). Many developers offer a pre-completion or handover inspection before you take the keys. This is the best time: the trades are still on site, and nothing you find can be blamed on your removal men. In the UK, if your developer has registered under the New Homes Quality Code, the Code gives buyers the right to a pre-completion inspection, including by an inspector you appoint. Check your reservation paperwork, and ask.

After you move in. Some defects only show up once the house is lived in: a radiator that never gets warm, a leak that only shows when the bath is filled, cracks as the plaster dries over the first winter. A second snag a few weeks or months in catches these.

Either way, snag inside the developer's defects period. In the UK, warranty schemes such as NHBC's commonly make the builder responsible for most defects for the first two years, with the later years being an insurance period that covers a narrower set of problems. Other providers and countries differ; in the UAE and Australia the contract usually sets a defects liability period. Read your own warranty and contract, but the practical point holds everywhere: the earlier a snag is on paper, the easier it is to get fixed.

Who does it

You. Plenty of buyers snag their own home, and with a good checklist, a torch and a free afternoon, you'll find most of it.

A professional snagger. A professional knows what's normal and what the developer will accept, will often find more, and their list may be taken more seriously. If you hire one, ask for a sample report first: you want numbered snags, precise locations and a photo of every one.

Whoever does it, give it time. A three-bedroom house properly snagged is a few hours' work, not a half-hour walk round with the sales advisor.

The kit

• A good torch. For lighting dark cupboards, and for the raking-light check on walls and ceilings (more on that below).
• A spirit level for worktops, door frames, window sills and shower trays.
• A tape measure for gaps, heights and anything you want to describe exactly.
• A plug-in socket tester for checking every socket is wired correctly. Plug it in and read the lights; don't take anything apart.
• A phone for photos and notes. It's replaced the clipboard.
• Low-tack masking tape or small stickers to mark each snag where it is, numbered to match your list, so the trade who comes to fix it finds the right spot. Use low-tack tape: ordinary tape can lift fresh paint, and then you've made a snag of your own.

1. Outside, before you go in

Walk the whole outside once, slowly. Look up as well as along.

Walls

• Brickwork: chipped or cracked bricks, mortar splashes, inconsistent colour where a batch changed
• Pointing: gaps, cracks, patchy or missing mortar, especially around windows and at corners
• Render or cladding: cracks, hollow-sounding patches, stains, poorly finished edges and beads
• Weep vents and air bricks present, not blocked by render, paving or soil

Roof line, from the ground

• Ridge and hip tiles straight and complete
• Slipped, cracked or missing tiles
• Fascias, soffits and bargeboards fixed and finished
• Gutters and downpipes: complete, joints sealed, downpipes connected into a drain rather than ending in mid-air. If it's raining, look for drips and overflows.

Windows and doors

• Frames undamaged, no scratches on the glass, seals continuous
• Sealant around frames neat and complete, no gaps
• Front and back doors closing and locking properly, threshold sound

Ground

• Paving and driveway: level, no rocking slabs, no puddling, edges finished
• Drainage: gullies clear, inspection chamber covers fitted and level
• Ground levels: soil and paving kept below the damp-proof course
• Fences, gates and boundary walls: upright, finished, gates latch
• Garage: door opens and closes, no cracks in the floor slab, lights and sockets work

2. Inside: the method for every room

Start on the top floor and work down. In each room, go top to bottom: ceiling, walls, doors and frames, skirting and architraves, floor. Then the things that work: windows, electrics, heating. The same order every room means you never miss a wall.

Ceilings and walls

• Cracks, especially at corners and where walls meet ceilings
• Paint finish: patchy coats, drips, runs, missed areas, paint on sockets and switches
• Plaster finish under a raking light. Hold the torch flat against the wall so the beam skims across the surface. Bumps, dips, trowel marks and filled holes that are invisible in daylight show up as shadows. One fair warning: some warranty standards judge finishes from a normal viewing distance in normal light, so expect the developer to argue about the faintest ones. List them anyway; mark them cosmetic.

Doors

• Hang: does it swing open or shut by itself? It shouldn't.
• Closing: latches without slamming, doesn't catch the frame or the floor
• Gaps around the door even, and the gap under it consistent
• Handles and hinges secure, all screws in, keys for any locks

Skirting, architraves and joinery

• Joints tight at corners, no gaps between skirting and wall or floor
• Caulk neat and continuous

Floors

• Tiles: cracked or chipped tiles, lippage (one tile edge higher than its neighbour), uneven or missing grout, hollow-sounding tiles
• Wood and laminate: scratches, gaps, boards lifting, squeaks when you walk

Windows

• Every window opens, closes and locks, and the restrictors work on upper floors
• Trickle vents open and close
• Sills level and finished, sealant neat

Electrics

• Every socket with the socket tester, and every switch, including the ones you'll never use
• Every light works
• Smoke and heat alarms present where expected; press the test button on each

Heating

• Every radiator gets hot, top and bottom, and has a working valve
• Underfloor heating: each zone responds to its thermostat

Stairs and landings

• Treads solid, no creaks or movement
• Balustrade and handrail firm: push the top rail; it shouldn't move

3. Kitchen

• Units and doors aligned: doors hang level, gaps even, doors and drawers open and close fully, soft-close working
• Worktops: level (use the spirit level), joints tight and invisible, no chips, edges sealed
• Sealant: continuous along the worktop and splashback, no gaps behind the sink
• Sink and taps: no leaks under the sink with the tap running, waste drains quickly
• Appliances: every one switches on. Oven heats, hob rings work, extractor runs and lights, fridge and freezer cool, dishwasher and washing machine (if supplied) connected without leaking

4. Bathrooms and en-suites

Water finds every shortcut a builder took, so this room gets the most time.

• Silicone: continuous around the bath, shower tray, basin and any change of material, with no gaps, smears or mould
• Tiles: cracked or hollow tiles, grout complete, cuts neat around pipes and fittings
• Water pressure and temperature at every tap and shower, hot water arriving in reasonable time
• Drainage: fill the bath and basin, then let them drain; flush every toilet and watch it refill
• Extract fan: runs, and keeps running for a while after the light goes off if it's designed to
• Waterproofing: look for staining or damp on the ceiling below every bathroom, and around shower trays and wet-room floors. In a flat or apartment, balconies and wet rooms are worth extra attention.
• Toilet and basin fixed firmly, no rocking

5. Services

• Boiler or heat pump: running, no error codes, pressure gauge within the range marked on it
• Consumer unit: circuits labelled so you know which breaker controls what. Look; don't open it.
• Meters accessible and readings noted on the day you take the keys
• Stopcock: you know where it is, and it turns

6. The loft

If there's safe access and boarding, take a look. If there isn't, look from the hatch with the torch.

• Insulation: laid evenly to the eaves, not squashed, no gaps
• Ventilation: eaves vents not blocked by insulation
• No daylight showing through the roof, no damp patches on the timbers or underside of the roof
• Loft hatch insulated and closing tightly, and any ladder secure

7. Writing each snag so it can't be waved away

A snag the developer can find and understand gets fixed; a vague one gets argued about. Every snag needs four things.

A number that never changes. Snag 14 is snag 14 on the first visit, the re-inspection and every email in between, so "14's done" means one thing.

A precise location. Not "scratch on door". "Bedroom 2, door to en-suite, room side, 30 cm below the handle: scratch through the paint." The decorator who comes to fix it has never been in your house.

A severity. Keep it to three:

• Safety or compliance: anything that could hurt someone or doesn't meet the rules: a loose balustrade, a socket failing the tester, a missing smoke alarm, an upper-floor window without a restrictor. These go at the top.
• Functional: something that doesn't work: a door that won't latch, a radiator that stays cold, a slow drain.
• Cosmetic: finish that's below standard: paint, plaster, scratches, grout.

A photo of every snag, close enough to see the defect and wide enough to see where it is. Two photos if it needs both.

8. The re-inspection loop

This is the part almost every snagging list gets wrong, and it's the part that decides whether the list was worth writing.

A snagging list isn't finished when you send it. Its real life is a loop: snag raised, developer fixes it, you check it, it's closed. Give every snag a status and move it only on evidence:

• Open: on the list, not yet fixed
• Fixed by developer: the developer says it's done
• Verified closed: you've looked at it yourself and it's right

A snag is never closed on the developer's word. "Fixed" from the site team means it's ready to check, not that it's done. On the re-inspection, walk the same list in the same order, look at every item marked fixed, and record what you find: closed, not fixed, or partly fixed. Take an after photo next to the before photo. Anything not fixed goes back as open, with the same number.

Then send back the counts as well as the list: raised, verified closed, still open, and how many of the open ones are safety items. That one line tells the developer where things stand without reading forty pages.

What most snagging lists get wrong

Vague locations. "Scratch on door" in a house with fourteen doors. The trade comes, can't find it, marks it done.

No photos. Without one it's your word against theirs, and after you've moved in, "it was like that at handover" is hard to prove.

No severity. A snag list in the order the snagger walked the house puts the loose balustrade on page six behind thirty paint touch-ups, and it gets fixed in the same order.

Sent as a spreadsheet with no photos. A row reading "Bed 2: paint" doesn't survive being forwarded from the customer care team to the site manager to the decorator.

No re-inspection. The developer says it's all done, nobody checks, and the list quietly becomes "we did everything on your list".

Renumbering on the second visit. A fresh list with new numbers means nobody can tell which old snag is which.

Doing it on site

Snagging means a torch in one hand, a socket tester in the other, and a phone somewhere. Typing a precise location and severity in every room is slow, so most people take photos and write the list up that evening, by which time "the scratch in the bedroom" has lost which bedroom it was in.

Speak while you walk, and the document the law or the client wants writes itself. For snagging the client is you, or the buyer who hired you, and the reader is the developer's site team. Walk each room and say what you see: "Bedroom 2, en-suite door, room side, scratch through the paint below the handle, cosmetic; photo. Same room, window by the bed, trickle vent won't close, functional; photo. Landing, balustrade moves when you push the top rail, safety; photo." Each snag has its room, its element, the defect, its severity and its photo, captured at the spot where it is. On the re-inspection, the same list comes back to the same rooms.

Related

• Property snagging inspection: the free snagging template, room by room
• New construction inspection: checks during and at the end of a build
• New construction inspection checklist: the stage-by-stage inspections before handover
• Punch list template: the US equivalent of a snag list
• Move-in inspection checklist: recording a home's condition on the day you get the keys

Frequently asked questions

What is a snagging checklist? A snagging checklist is a room-by-room list of defects in a newly built home, such as unfinished work, poor finishes, things that don't work and safety problems, written up so the developer can fix them. It's used in the UK, Ireland, the UAE and Australia. In the US, the equivalent is a punch list.

When should you do a snagging inspection? Ideally before completion or at handover, while the developer's team is still on site, and again a few weeks or months after moving in to catch defects that only show up once the home is lived in. Either way, do it within the developer's defects period, which is set by your warranty and contract.

What should a snag list include for each defect? A number that stays the same across visits, a precise location (room, element and position), a description of the defect, a severity (safety, functional or cosmetic) and a photo.

What happens after the snagging list is sent to the developer? The developer fixes the snags and tells you which are done. You then re-inspect: check every item marked fixed, close the ones that are right, and send back anything that isn't, with the same number. A snag isn't closed until you've seen it fixed.

What's the difference between snagging and a punch list? They're the same job under different names. "Snagging" is used in the UK, Ireland, the UAE and Australia, usually by or for a home buyer. "Punch list" is the US term, often used by contractors and owners at the end of any construction project.