Hiring a snagging surveyor: what to expect
A snagging survey is an independent inspection of a new-build home before you take it on, carried out by someone whose job is to find things wrong. Developers run their own pre-handover checks; a snagging survey exists because those checks are marking their own homework.
What it covers
A competent inspection is systematic rather than a wander round. Expect it to work through:
- Externals — brickwork and pointing, render, roof tiles and flashings visible from the ground, rainwater goods, drives, paths and levels, drainage gullies, garden boundaries.
- Weather-tightness — window and door seals, thresholds, sealant runs, signs of water tracking.
- Services — every socket and switch, lighting, heating in every room, hot water, extract ventilation, drainage running away, boiler and controls.
- Safety-critical items — stair balustrades and guarding heights, glazing type in critical locations, fire doors and smoke alarms.
- Finishes — the long tail: paint, tiling, joinery gaps, ironmongery, worktops, flooring, doors that bind or fail to latch.
Two things it usually does not cover: anything concealed by finished construction, and anything requiring specialist testing or access equipment. A survey is a visual inspection, and the report should say so plainly rather than leave you assuming otherwise.
What the report should contain
The document is what you actually pay for, and its quality varies enormously. It should give you, per item: where it is, precisely; what is wrong, described so a site manager can act without a follow-up call; a photograph showing both the defect and enough context to find it; and a priority, so safety and weather-tightness are not buried among paint marks.
A hundred-item list with no priorities is not more thorough than a fifty-item list with them — it just moves the sorting work onto you, at the moment you have least leverage.
When to book it
As close to completion as the developer will allow, and ideally before you complete rather than after. Access before completion is at the developer's discretion and some refuse it; if so, book for the first days after you move in, while the handover is fresh and nothing can be attributed to your own occupation.
If you cannot get an inspection before completion, take your own dated photographs on the day you get the keys, before any furniture arrives. That record is worth more than it sounds when a dispute arrives months later.
Using the report
Send it to the developer in writing, keep the covering email, and ask for a schedule of when items will be attended to. Then re-inspect: the common failure is not the developer refusing to fix things, it is items marked complete that were never done or were done badly, and nobody checking.
Most new homes come with a warranty that separates the first two years — the builder's responsibility for defects — from the remaining structural cover. That first period is when a snagging report earns its money, so do not let items drift out of it.
Whether you are the surveyor or the buyer, the same record-keeping applies: numbered items, dated photographs, one list that survives the re-inspections. That is what Snagger is built to produce — pins on the plan, photos on the item, a PDF you can send the same day.