Handover: What to Check Before You Accept a Building

Handover is treated as a ceremony. It is a legal event. Acceptance shifts risk, starts the defect liability clock, and materially weakens your position on anything you did not identify.

A building should be accepted deliberately, and there is a method.

Before you inspect anything: the documents

The paperwork matters as much as the building, and it is far easier to obtain before final payment than after.

• Occupancy certificate, and every NOC, fire, lift, electrical, environmental where applicable.
• As-built drawings, architectural, structural and services. Not the construction set. The as-built set, showing what was actually done. Ask for these in editable format, not only as PDFs.
• Operation and maintenance manuals for every system.
• Warranties and guarantees, assigned to you, with the start dates stated. Waterproofing, roofing, façade, lifts, HVAC, generators.
• Testing and commissioning certificates for every system.
• Statutory compliance records, earthing tests, water potability, fire system tests.
• Spares and specialist tools as specified, and the keys, properly scheduled.

Do not release final payment or the retention until this is complete. After handover, the effort required to obtain a missing manual rises sharply.

Commissioning is not a formality

Systems must be proven under load, not switched on.

Water at the furthest and highest fixture, at peak demand. HVAC holding design conditions on a hot afternoon, not a mild morning. Generator taking full load on automatic changeover, repeatedly. Fire systems, detection, alarm, sprinklers, pressurisation, smoke extraction, tested as an integrated system, because they are meant to act together. Lifts under load, including fireman's operation. Drainage under flow, including the storm system, which in India means before or during a monsoon if possible.

A system that was tested empty has not been tested.

Snagging, done properly

Snagging finds defects in what was built. It is not the moment to raise things you dislike about what was specified.

Method: room by room, systematically, with a written list, photographs, and a location reference for every item. Two passes on different days and in different light, many defects are visible only in raking light. Include the roof, the plant rooms, the basement, the services shafts and the external areas, which are consistently under-inspected and are where the expensive problems are.

The high-value items, worth disproportionate attention because they are the ones that get worse:

• Any sign of water. Staining, damp patches, efflorescence. Trace every one to its source before accepting.
• Roof and terrace falls. Pour water and watch where it goes. It should go to the outlets.
• External drips and drainage. Where does water leave the building, and does it leave without running across the façade.
• Junctions and joints, which is where movement will show first.
• Door and window operation, including under wind load.
• Anything that will be concealed and inaccessible later.

Cosmetic snags are easy to find and low value. Water and access are what to concentrate on.

The defect liability period

A defined period during which the contractor rectifies defects at no cost, usually secured by retained money.

Two things determine whether it is useful. First, whether you inspect properly before it expires, a formal re-inspection at the three-quarter point, not a scramble in the last week. Second, whether the retention is genuinely held. Retention released early is leverage released early.

Understand also what it does not cover: fair wear and tear, damage from misuse, and failures arising from your own operation and maintenance regime. Which makes the O&M manuals more than paperwork, a system that fails because it was never serviced is not a defect.

The rule

Do not accept a building to meet a date.

The pressure at handover is always to accept, because a lease is starting, a season is opening, or a payment is due. The items outstanding at that moment are the items you will be arguing about in eighteen months, from a much weaker position.

Accept when the building is finished and the documents are in your hands. Not before.