Pre-drywall inspection
A pre-drywall inspection is a check of a building after framing, wiring and plumbing are in place but before the walls are closed up. It is the last point at which the structure and the services can be seen.
Also called: pre-drywall walkthrough, frame stage check
The sequence on any site is the same everywhere: structure, then services, then the walls go on and everything behind them disappears. Plumbing runs, electrical routes, insulation, bracing, waterproofing details at junctions. All of it is visible for a window of weeks and then it is not.
That window is why the check exists as a distinct thing. It is not an early version of a snagging visit. The two look at different subjects: one at what the building is made of, the other at how it was finished. A defect in a pipe joint and a scratch on a worktop are not different severities of the same category.
The economics differ too. A misrouted service found before the wall closes is a morning's work for a trade already on site. The same fault found after handover means opening a finished wall, and the argument is then about who pays for the opening as much as about the fault itself.
In US new-build practice the pre-drywall walkthrough is a normal scheduled step and buyers are expected at it. In most markets serving foreign off-plan buyers there is no such step: the contract provides for payment against stage completion, and nobody is scheduled to look at anything.
For a buyer abroad the constraint is timing rather than access. The window is short and it moves with the programme, so it cannot be planned around a trip booked months earlier. Either somebody is following the sequence closely enough to know when it opens, or it closes unobserved.
If your build has not reached this stage yet, this is the most valuable point at which anybody can look at it on your behalf. Once the walls are on, no amount of care later recovers the view.