Handover is where three years of goodwill is either confirmed or spent. The mechanics are simple: inspect, rectify, offer possession, record what remains, and honour the defect liability period. Projects go wrong when the snag list lives in a notebook, rectification is tracked by whoever happens to remember, and the developer discovers six months later that thirty units still have open items nobody logged.
The sequence that works
- Internal pre-handover inspection by your own site team, room by room against a standard checklist.
- Rectification of everything found, before the buyer is invited.
- Joint inspection with the buyer, with the list signed by both.
- Rectification of buyer-identified items, with dated commitments per item.
- Handover — keys, meters, documents, warranty pack, signed handover certificate.
- Defect liability period runs, with a defined route for the buyer to report defects.
- Closure, and release of any retention held against the contractor. See certifying a contractor bill.
Step one is the one most often skipped and the one that determines the tone of everything after. A buyer whose first inspection finds three minor items behaves completely differently from one who finds forty.
A snagging checklist that catches what matters
Organise by room and by trade, so nothing depends on the inspector's memory:
| Area | Typical items |
|---|---|
| Doors and windows | Alignment, locks, handles, seals, glass condition |
| Walls and ceilings | Finish, cracks, patching, paint coverage |
| Floors | Level, tile lippage, grouting, skirting |
| Electrical | Every socket and switch tested, DB labelled, earthing |
| Plumbing | Every tap and drain run, leaks, water pressure, flush operation |
| Kitchen and bathrooms | Fittings, sealant, cabinet operation, exhaust |
| Balcony and external | Railing fixing, drainage falls, waterproofing |
| Common areas | Lift operation, lobby finish, generator, water pump, fire equipment |
Photograph each item at logging and again at rectification. A dated photograph pair ends nearly every dispute about whether something was fixed.
Tracking that survives the project
Each snag is a small record with the same fields: unit, location, description, photograph, responsible party, target date, status, and rectification photograph. The value is not in any single item; it is in the report — open items by unit, by trade and by age. That report tells you whether handover is on track and where the contractor is not performing, and it is the only reliable way to run a handover of a hundred units at once.
Aligning the two liability periods
The buyer has a defect liability period under the sale agreement. The contractor usually has one under the construction contract. If the contractor's expires first, the developer carries the tail alone. Align them at contract stage, and release contractor retention against the same record that closes buyer snags rather than against a separate conversation.
Handover as a sales asset
Buyers talk. A handover where the flat was clean, the list was short, and the open items were fixed on the dates promised produces referrals; the opposite produces a story that reaches every prospective buyer in the same social circle. Given how much a booking costs to acquire, the rectification budget is one of the cheapest marketing investments a developer makes. See what a delay costs for the same argument on timing.
What to do next
Take the last ten units you handed over and count the items still open, and how many days each has been open. If nobody can produce that number in five minutes, your defect liability exposure is unmeasured — see snags tracked per unit through to closure.