Handover inspection
A handover inspection is the walk-through of a completed property before you sign the acceptance document and take the keys. It is the last point at which unfinished work is the developer's problem by default.
Also called: final walkthrough, acceptance visit, vistoria
The names differ by market and the procedure is broadly the same. In Portugal it is the vistoria, a joint walk-through with the developer at which the property is accepted. In the United States it is the final walkthrough. In the Gulf and much of Asia it is simply handover, often combined with a snagging visit commissioned by the buyer.
What makes it consequential is the signature at the end. Acceptance documents generally record that the property has been delivered in accordance with the contract. Once that is signed without qualification, the burden shifts: you are no longer asking the developer to finish what they promised, you are asking them to come back and repair something you have already agreed was satisfactory.
The practical answer is not to refuse to sign, which has its own consequences and rarely helps. It is to sign with the defects recorded as annexed reservations, dated, photographed and specific. "Kitchen incomplete" is not a reservation anyone will act on. "Kitchen: extractor absent, two base units missing, worktop joint open at sink, photographed 14 March" is.
Buyers who cannot attend in person face a sharper version of the same problem, because acceptance is frequently handled by a representative under power of attorney. Whoever holds that authority is making a decision with contractual force on your behalf, and they should be working from a written record rather than an impression.
Never sign an unqualified acceptance. If something is unfinished, record it specifically, with dates and photographs, in an annex to the document you sign.