What is a snagging list, and what makes one hold up?

A list that says "kitchen, poor paintwork" is a complaint. It cannot be assigned, cannot be verified, and six weeks later nobody agrees what it referred to. Six fields turn a complaint into something that closes.

1. 01Where. Room, level and elevation. "Plot 4, first floor, bedroom 2, north wall", not "upstairs".
2. 02What. The observed condition, not the remedy. "Plaster cracked, 300mm, above door architrave" rather than "needs filling".
3. 03Why it fails. The standard it does not meet: the specification, the drawing, a tolerance, or workmanship.
4. 04Photograph. Taken at the item, showing enough context to locate it again.
5. 05When. The date and time it was raised. This is what makes the list evidence rather than assertion.
6. 06Who owns it. The trade or subcontractor responsible, so the list can actually be issued to somebody.

A photograph with no time and no place is worth very little in a dispute. The same photograph stamped with when and where it was taken is close to unarguable.

People use the words interchangeably and the contract does not. The distinction decides whether a certificate can be issued.

NoteA long list of snags does not become a defect by weight of numbers. Fifty cosmetic items still do not stop a building being occupied, but they may say something about supervision, which is a different conversation.

On a contract with an administrator, they inspect and issue the list. On a domestic job, the client often does it themselves, or pays an independent snagging surveyor, common on new-build homes, where the surveyor measures against NHBC tolerances rather than opinion.

Timing matters more than most people allow for. Inspect too early and you list work that was always going to be finished; too late and handover slips while the list is worked through. The practical answer on most jobs is a pre-handover walk about two weeks out, then a final one at handover to confirm what closed.

On new homes, the buyer usually gets a further opportunity: most warranty providers expect defects reported in the first two years to be dealt with by the builder directly, so a list made at the end of the first year repays doing properly.

It becomes the working document of the defects liability period, commonly six or twelve months from practical completion. Items are assigned, put right, re-inspected and signed off. When the list is empty the certificate of making good is issued, and that is what releases the second half of the retention.

So an open list has a direct cash value. Every item still disputed at the end of the period is holding money that would otherwise have been released, and on a £400,000 contract with 5% retention that is £10,000 sitting against a handful of unresolved lines.

The second half of the retention is released when the list closes. An item nobody has re-inspected is not a quality problem, it is a cash-flow one.

Not because paper is old-fashioned, but because of what a paper list cannot carry. Three problems recur.

• No location that survives. A note on a drawing marked up in a site hut is meaningless to the subcontractor who receives a typed copy a week later.
• No date on the evidence. Photographs taken on a phone and emailed lose the metadata most people assume travels with them. When the argument is whether damage happened before or after another trade was in the room, that date is the whole answer.
• No record of what closed. Items are ticked off in a version somebody holds and not in the version somebody else holds, and by the end of the period there are three lists that disagree.

None of these is solved by better handwriting. They are solved by the item, the photograph, the position and the time being one record from the moment it is raised.