You are buying off-plan in a country you are not in
The developer's word will be your only source of information about the building unless you arrange otherwise, and the developer is the party being paid. What you need is not more frequent updates from them but a record from someone who is not.
Distance changes which risks matter
A buyer in the same city drives past the site. They notice when nothing has changed for two months, and they notice it early enough for the observation to be worth something.
At distance that feedback loop does not exist. What arrives instead is a selection: the photographs the developer chose, from the angles they chose, on the dates they chose to send them. None of it is dishonest and none of it is evidence.
The second thing distance changes is who signs. Acceptance is frequently handled by a representative under power of attorney, which means somebody else is making a decision with contractual force on your behalf. They should be working from a written record.
What the report contains at this point
The report is the same product at every one of these moments, and it costs the same. What changes is what it is filled with, and this is what it leads with here.
- The same rooms and zones photographed on every visit, so the same space compares over time
- Progress weighted by stage against your contract, not against the building in general
- Each invoice checked against the clause that triggers it
- A forecast completion date with a range and a stated confidence level
- The limits of what was checked, in every report, including how much of the site we were given access to
What to set up before the first instalment
Useful whether or not you order anything from us. If the developer answers all of it in writing, you have what you needed and we are not required.
- 01Read the payment schedule before anything else in the contract. Whether payments follow stages or calendar dates decides how much say you have if the build falls behind.
- 02Find the specification annex and keep it. It is the document the finished property will be measured against.
- 03Decide who will hold power of attorney at handover, and on what basis they will decide to sign.
- 04Set an interval for reports that matches your payment schedule, so a report lands before each invoice rather than after it.
Questions on this
Can I just ask the developer for more photographs?
You can, and you should. It costs nothing and the response tells you something either way. What it does not give you is a comparable record: photographs chosen by the seller, from varying angles, on varying dates, cannot be measured against each other.
What if the site will not let your specialist in?
Access is arranged with your authorisation before the visit, not at the gate. If we are refused on the day we photograph and date the perimeter and every accessible elevation, and the report comes out on time on what could be obtained — that record, the permits and approvals, and your payment position against your contract. The refusal is in it, dated, and your next visit stays on the schedule.
How often is worth it?
Match the interval to your payment schedule rather than to the calendar. A report that arrives two weeks after an instalment was paid is history; the same report two weeks before it is a decision.