New Homes Quality Code pre-completion inspection: what the inspector checks

The pre-completion inspection is the point at which a housebuilder's quality control is tested by someone who does not work for it. The customer, or an inspector acting for them, walks the finished home before legal completion with a checklist the New Homes Quality Board wrote, and everything on the resulting list becomes a snag with a clock on it. Developers who treat the visit as the inspection lose the day; those who treat it as an audit of an inspection already done find it a formality. This is what the inspector checks, and what has to exist before they arrive.

Where the inspection comes from

The New Homes Quality Code is administered by the New Homes Quality Board and applies to developers registered with it. Version 2 was published in March 2026 and applies to homes reserved from 2 March 2026; the first version, from October 2023, governs earlier reservations, so a site with plots reserved either side of that date is running both. Part 2 of the Code covers the period up to completion, and the customer's right to inspect sits there, under clause 2.8: after the developer has given notice that the home is ready to complete, and before legal completion, the customer may inspect the home themselves or appoint a suitably qualified inspector to do it. The developer cannot refuse, cannot restrict the visit to a token walk-round, and has to give a notice period long enough for the inspection to happen, usually at least fourteen calendar days. The inspection is carried out against the NHQB's own pre-completion inspection checklist, not the inspector's, and that is the detail that decides how the day goes.

What the checklist covers

The NHQB checklist is public, and a developer's own quality team should know it better than the inspector does. It is organised the way a plot is walked, room by room and element by element, with guidance on what is and is not a defect. Broadly, the inspector is looking at four things.

• Finishes. Plaster and paint, ceilings, skirtings and architraves, tiling, flooring, kitchen units and worktops, sanitaryware, glazing and ironmongery. The guidance sets viewing distances and conditions, for instance internal surfaces viewed in daylight from two metres and external finishes from ten, with small marks below a stated size accepted. An item passed at arm's length under a torch may fail at two metres in daylight, and vice versa; the criteria are the ones that count.
• Operation. Doors and windows opening, closing, locking and sealing; taps, wastes, WCs and showers running and draining; the heating and hot water firing; extract fans running; sockets and switches live; smoke and heat alarms sounding on test; appliances working. The inspector operates things, so the plot has to be live, filled, vented and commissioned before the notice to complete is served, not after.
• External and plot. Brickwork and pointing, render, roof coverings and flashings visible from the ground, rainwater goods, driveways, paths, fencing, gates, garden levels and gullies, meter boxes and external taps. The external works are where incomplete items are most often found, because they depend on the adjacent plot.
• Safety and compliance items. Glazing markings where required, balustrade heights, the consumer unit labelled, the gas appliances labelled and fire door closers working where the home has them. The checklist directs attention to the items a customer would not know to look at.

The output is a list of items the inspector considers defects against the checklist guidance. The developer reviews each one, accepts it as a snag or records why it is not a defect, and the agreed list goes on the plot snagging register with its source recorded as the customer's inspection.

Snag or defect

The two words are used loosely on site and precisely by an ombudsman. A snag is an item, usually cosmetic or a matter of adjustment, that can be put right quickly without affecting whether the home is complete: a paint run, a door needing easing, a mastic bead to redo. A defect is a failure to meet the building regulations, the warranty provider's technical standard or the specification the home was sold against: a bathroom floor that holds water, a missing cavity tray. The Code's glossary and the checklist guidance govern how an item is classified, and the classification matters because the consequences differ. A snag found before completion is put right, where possible, before the keys are handed over, or within thirty days; a defect is a breach of the warranty standard, NHBC Standards 2026 for homes whose foundations began on or after 1 January 2026, that the developer has to remedy under the warranty and the Code's after-sales provisions. A developer who argues that a defect is a snag will find the ombudsman reading the checklist guidance more carefully than it did.

The inspection that has to come first

The Code does not, in terms, require the developer to inspect its own plot. Arithmetic does. Every item the customer's inspector finds is an item the developer's inspection missed, and each becomes a customer communication, a register line and a thirty-day clock. So the developer's plot completion inspection has to be at least as thorough as the customer's, has to use the same or tighter criteria, and has to happen before the notice to complete is served. The checklist we use runs to over two hundred lines for a three-bedroom house, structured as the plot is walked, room by room, then loft, garage, envelope, plot, whole-house services and certificates. Each line carries the item, the acceptance standard, a pass, snag or not-applicable result and the snag reference. The length is the point: the inspector will look at everything, so the developer must already have looked at everything.

The register the checklist feeds needs three things the usual site snag list lacks: a source for each item, so that customer-found items can be counted separately; an owner and a target date; and a flag for whether the customer can see the item. The notice to complete is not served until the register shows the plot clear or the remaining items agreed with the customer in writing, with a date, as clause 2.10 allows where something genuinely cannot be finished.

The records that show the home was ready

The Code asks the developer to prove that the home was inspected and finished before the customer was asked to complete, that the customer was given the information and the demonstration, and that anything reported afterwards was handled in time. Each is a record, per plot.

• The developer's plot completion checklist, signed and dated before the notice to complete, with every line answered.
• The plot snagging register, showing the items found, their source, their close-out date and the sign-off, with the customer's inspection items identifiable.
• The pre-completion inspection record itself: who inspected, when, the list received, the developer's response item by item and the agreed outcome.
• The plot certificate schedule, completed plot by plot: the building control completion certificate under regulation 17 of the Building Regulations 2010; the Electrical Installation Certificate to BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 and the Part P notification; the gas notification and the heating commissioning certificates; the energy performance certificate and the air tightness result where one was required; the ventilation commissioning record; the water regulations notification; the warranty documentation; and the manufacturer warranties, registered where registration is a condition. A missing certificate is a completion that cannot happen on the date.
• The home demonstration record under clause 2.11: the systems shown, the questions asked, the follow-ups, and the customer's signature.
• The handover certificate and key release, with the schedule of incomplete work, short and signed by both parties.

After the keys, Part 3 of the Code runs the clocks: thirty days for snags, a defined complaint process with dates, and referral to the New Homes Ombudsman Service where the developer has not resolved matters in time. Those dates are only manageable from a log that calculates them.

Our Housing & Fit-Out Completion Pack carries the plot completion checklist, the pre-completion inspection record, the certificate schedule, the snagging register and the customer care log written to Version 2 of the Code; the Activity Check Sheet Library holds the trade check sheets that sit behind the plot inspection. The Code and the NHQB checklist belong to the New Homes Quality Board, and their text governs where this summary is briefer.