Snagging in London

Snagging is the process of finding the defects in a finished building, recording them, and getting them put right. On a new build it happens around legal completion, when the developer hands you the keys. On a renovation it happens at practical completion, when the builder hands the site back. The principle is the same in both cases. The work has been paid for, and it is meant to be finished.

The money matters because the leverage is short and it expires. A snagging survey on a London flat costs roughly £300 to £450, and on a house £450 to £600. Against that, the HBF National New Homes Customer Satisfaction Survey reported in March 2025 that 93.7% of buyers raised problems with their builder after moving in. Once the developer's two year responsibility has run, or a builder's retention has been released, anything still outstanding lands on you.

What does a snagging survey cost?

A snagging survey costs roughly £300 to £600 in 2026, scaling with the size of the property. London sits at the upper end, partly because of property values and partly because some national firms add a London surcharge of £30 to £80 to their base price.

Property	Typical survey cost	Re-inspection
Studio or 1 bed flat	£299 to £350	£290 to £350
2 to 3 bed flat	£349 to £450	£290 to £350
2 to 3 bed house	£450 to £600	from £369
4 bed house and above	£479 to £600	from £369

Survey pricing from HomeOwners Alliance and London snagging market rates, 2026. These are surveyors' fees, not the cost of remedial work.

Budget for the re-inspection as well as the survey. A snagging list nobody goes back to check is a document rather than an outcome.

We do not carry out snagging surveys and we do not sell them. GS Renovation is a building contractor, not a surveying practice. A snagging survey is properly done by an independent snagging surveyor or a chartered surveyor, and the whole value of it is that the person writing the list has no interest in who fixes it. Instruct someone independent, read the report, then decide what you want doing and by whom. If we end up doing the remedial work, we would rather work from a list written by someone with nothing to gain from its length.

When should you snag, before or after legal completion?

Before completion if you possibly can, because that is the only point at which you still hold the money. If your developer is registered with the New Homes Quality Board, the New Homes Quality Code requires them to give you the opportunity to inspect the property yourself, or to appoint a suitably qualified inspector to do it for you. That inspection happens after the notice to complete has been served and before the completion date.

The inspection uses a standard pre-completion checklist. The Code itself notes it was designed to be carried out by a professional, and that a buyer working alone may miss items or read the standards differently. Where the inspection finds a breach of the warranty technical standards, the developer is responsible for addressing it, ideally before legal completion or within 30 days. The Code is also explicit that the checklist is not there to delay completion, so it is a right to inspect rather than a right to refuse the keys.

After completion your position is weaker but not weak. The developer remains responsible for two years. The detail most buyers miss sits in the warranty rather than the Code: under NHBC Buildmark, purely cosmetic damage is not covered if it is reported more than seven days after the completion date. Scratched glass and chipped sanitary ware are the examples the policy itself gives. Walk the property inside a week and put everything in writing.

What actually goes on a snagging list?

A snagging list records anything that does not meet the contract or the warranty technical standards, sorted so the serious items are not buried under the trivial ones. Three categories behave very differently, and a good list keeps them apart.

Cosmetic snags are finish items: paint coverage, scratches, sealant gaps, marked skirtings, chipped tiles. These carry the seven day reporting window and are excluded from the years three to ten insurance entirely. Functional defects are things that do not work: a radiator that never heats, an extractor that does not vent outside, a window that will not lock, a shower tray falling the wrong way. Those sit with the developer for the full two years. Structural issues are different again, and they need a structural engineer or a surveyor to diagnose the cause before anyone quotes a repair.

• Walls and ceilings: ripples under raking light, cracks, patchy paint, missed edges above door frames and behind radiators
• Floors: scratches, lifting boards, gaps at skirtings and thresholds, hollow or bouncing sections
• Doors and windows: binding, uneven gaps, failed locks and catches, scratched glass, missing trickle vents
• Kitchen: door and drawer alignment, worktop joints and seals, appliance operation, extraction sealed and vented outside
• Bathrooms: sealant, grout, falls to shower trays and wet areas, wastes running properly, extractor venting outside
• Heating: every radiator heating fully, controls working, no airlocks, boiler commissioning paperwork present
• Electrics: every socket and switch tested, consumer unit labelled correctly, smoke and heat alarms working
• External: render and pointing, gutters and downpipes running clear, drainage gullies, driveway falls
• Paperwork: building control completion certificate, electrical certification, gas commissioning, warranty schedule

Where a crack or a movement issue turns up rather than a finish defect, that is a diagnosis job before it is a repair job. Our guide to when a crack is worth worrying about sets out what separates settlement from something structural.

Who is responsible for putting the defects right?

For the first two years after legal completion on a new build, the developer is responsible and you report to them directly. That responsibility runs alongside the warranty rather than replacing it. If you told the builder about something during the builder warranty period, they must put it right at their own cost and within a reasonable time.

Where the developer is registered with the New Homes Quality Board, the Code adds teeth. A snag not put right within 30 days of being reported can be pushed into the developer's formal complaints process, and if the complaint is not closed the developer must issue an eight week letter no later than 56 days from the complaint start date. From there you can refer the matter to the New Homes Ombudsman Service, which is free to use. You have two years from reservation or completion, whichever is later.

Coverage is not universal. Roughly 60% of new homes in England, Scotland and Wales fall under the Code, and around 250 builders have registered with the Board, so check the register before relying on it. Reported award ceilings differ by scheme, at up to £75,000 under the New Homes Ombudsman Service and £50,000 under the older Consumer Code for Home Builders for homes reserved from 1 January 2024 (HomeOwners Alliance, 2026).

The buyer usually ends up paying in three places: cosmetic items reported after the seven day window, anything the developer classes as within tolerance that you simply want done better, and anything at all once the two years have run and the item is not one the insurance covers. That last category is where most of our snagging work comes from.

What the warranty covers in years one to two, and three to ten

The two halves of a new build warranty are completely different products, and confusing them is the most common mistake buyers make. The first two years are a warranty backed by the builder. Years three to ten are an insurance policy backed by the warranty provider, and it covers far less.

Period	Who is responsible	What is covered
First two years, three for shared parts	The builder	Anything failing to meet the warranty standards. Cosmetic damage only if reported within seven days of completion
Years three to ten	The warranty provider, as insurer	Physical damage from a defect in listed parts only: foundations, load-bearing walls and floors, roofs, ceilings, external cladding and render, balconies, chimneys and flues, staircases, screeds, external glazing panes and underground drainage you are responsible for

NHBC Buildmark policy booklet for homes registered from 1 April 2024. Other warranty providers use different structures, so read your own policy schedule.

From year three the builder is out of it, and the exclusions matter more than the inclusions. Cosmetic damage is excluded outright. So is cracking that does not weaken structural stability or weather tightness, sound transmission, damage affecting only floor coverings, and staining to finishes. A minimum claim value also applies rather than an excess, so a repair costing less than that figure is not paid at all. The figure sits on your policy schedule and rises each year.

Snagging at the end of a renovation contract

Snagging is not only a new build process. It happens at the end of every renovation, and the mechanics differ because you are the client rather than a buyer, and you hold a retention rather than relying on a warranty.

Practical completion is the point at which the work is finished enough for you to use the house, even if a short list remains. It triggers handover, the certificates and the release of the first half of the retention. Retention is normally 3% to 5% of the contract value, with half released at practical completion and the balance once the defects have been made good. The period in which the contractor must return is the rectification period, and depending on the form of contract it runs from around three months to twelve.

The retention is what makes snagging work on a renovation. It is not a penalty and a good contractor does not resent it. If the contractor does not come back to put the defects right within a reasonable time after being told, someone else can be brought in and the cost deducted. That is the entire point of holding it.

We snag our own projects before inviting the client to, because it is better to have found the thirty items yourself than to be shown them. We issue a written list at practical completion with a date against each item, and we return at the end of the rectification period for a second look, because shrinkage cracking, sticking doors and sealant gaps appear as a building dries out and settles into use. Our snagging list guide walks through the full process, and the way renovation contracts handle retention covers the paperwork side.

One thing worth saying plainly. Not every imperfection is a snag. Plaster is floated by hand and will not be optically flat under a torch held against the wall. Timber moves. A list that treats normal tolerance as failure buries the three or four items that genuinely need attention.

What does it cost to put the list right?

It depends entirely on what is on the list, which is why we price from the surveyor's report rather than quoting a headline rate. Send us the survey and the photographs, we go through it line by line, and we quote the items you actually want doing. Some lists run to 200 entries and 190 of them belong to the developer. We are only interested in the ones that have fallen to you.

Remedial work	Typical cost	Notes
Patch plaster repair to a wall	£100 to £300	Localised damage, made good and left ready to decorate
Re-skim a single wall	£250 to £400	Where patching would still read through the paint
Re-skim a small room	£450 to £650	Rising to £850 to £1,150 for a large room
Repaint a bedroom	£250 to £660	By room size, two coats over prepared surfaces
Retile a small bathroom	£300 to £700	Tiling labour runs £20 to £40 per m²
Hang or rehang an internal door	around £30	About £50 for a fire-rated door

MyJobQuote cost guides, 2026. National published ranges. London and the South East sit at the top of each band, and access and preparation change the figure.

Larger items, such as opening up a wall to trace movement or rebuilding a section of defective structure, are a different exercise. On those we appoint a structural engineer, build to their design and details, and hand you the sign-off at the end. We coordinate engineers and we build what they specify. We do not produce structural calculations, and we do not act as a surveyor, an architect or a party wall surveyor.