Your handover is coming up and you cannot be there
Get the property checked against your contract before you sign the acceptance document, not after. Signing without recorded reservations moves the burden onto you: from that point you are asking the developer to come back and repair something you have already agreed was satisfactory.
Why the signature is the whole thing
Acceptance documents generally record that the property has been delivered in accordance with the contract. That sentence is doing more work than it looks. Before it, unfinished work is the developer's obligation. After it, unfinished work is a request.
The practical answer is not to refuse to sign, which has its own consequences and rarely helps anyone. It is to sign with the defects annexed as reservations: dated, photographed and specific. "Kitchen incomplete" is not a reservation anyone acts on. "Kitchen: extractor absent, two base units missing, worktop joint open at the sink, photographed 14 March" is.
Buyers who cannot attend face a sharper version of the same problem, because acceptance is usually 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.
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.
- Every room against the specification annexed to your contract, not against a general idea of good work
- Square metres delivered against square metres contracted
- Materials and fittings against what the specification names
- Every observation recorded during the build: closed, still open, or reappeared
- The final payment checked against what the contract requires for it
- A letter to the developer listing what is outstanding, ready to send
What to do in the next two weeks
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.
- 01Find the acceptance clause in your contract and read what you are being asked to sign.
- 02Find the specification annex. That is the document the property is measured against, and it is usually the one nobody reads twice.
- 03Ask the developer in writing for the handover date and for confirmation that a representative of yours may attend.
- 04Book the report so the visit lands before the date, not on it: you want the list in hand while there is still time to raise it.
- 05Consider snagging as well. Our report covers what the contract required; a snagging firm covers the finish with instruments. Most people at handover take both.
Questions on this
The developer says I have to sign today or lose the unit. Is that true?
Almost never, and the pressure itself is worth noting. Your contract sets out what happens if acceptance is delayed, and it is rarely forfeiture. This is a question for your lawyer, and the answer is much easier to give when there is a dated record of what was and was not finished on the day.
Can you attend the handover on my behalf?
We visit and we record. We do not sign anything for you and we do not negotiate with the developer, which is explicitly outside what we sell. What you get is the record and the letter; the decision and the signature stay with you or with whoever holds your power of attorney.
I am four weeks out. Is there time?
Yes. The earliest visit is a day from order against a published surcharge, five days as standard, and the report follows within five working days of the visit. Four weeks is comfortable, and it leaves room to raise what the report finds before the date.