In short: The finishes get the attention at handover. The items that matter most are usually about water.
The shower
At one Wyndham Vale handover the shower was recorded as leaking when it was run. Water getting out of a shower is the kind of fault that does damage quietly, into the floor and the wall behind, and it is far easier to have fixed while the builder still owes you the house.
The roof
On another, roof tiles were cracked and underlaps broken, and tiles overhung the gutter by more than the 65mm allowed. None of that is visible from the driveway. It is found by looking at the roof properly, from the ground, by drone and from inside the roof space.
Water at ground level
Weep holes sat too close to the finished ground, stormwater pipes were left uncapped and silt pits held soil from the build. On the clay ground of the volcanic plain, how water leaves the site matters to the slab as much as to the garden.
What to do with it
Send the numbered list to your builder before you sign for practical completion, and book a reinspection once the builder says it is done. That second visit is where you find out whether it was.
Written by our local inspection team from work carried out in Wyndham Vale. Licensed building practitioners, Building & Plumbing Commission registration CDB-U 53425.
