What is the most important thing to check at handover?

Water — drainage slopes, tap pressure, and any sign of damp on shared or bathroom-adjacent walls. Waterproofing is the builder's responsibility and by far the most expensive thing to fix once your joinery is installed against that wall.

Should interiors start before or after snags are fixed?

After. Every snag found before interiors start is the builder's to fix; after, it becomes yours, and fixing it usually means dismantling something you have just paid for.

What should I ask the society for?

The written rules for interior work — permitted hours, weekend restrictions, lift usage and protection, debris removal windows, contractor registration and any refundable deposit. These shape your project schedule more than most people expect.

Builder Handover Checklist | ModScale Bangalore

Structure and surfaces

Check floor level with a spirit level or a long straight edge in every room — an unlevel floor is what makes tall units and large-format flooring expensive later. Check walls for square at every corner; out-of-square walls mean scribe fillers in joinery, which is fine if it is known now and ugly if it is discovered on installation day.

Look for hollow tiles (tap them), cracked or chipped tiles, and hairline cracks at wall junctions. Photograph everything with a scale reference.

Water — the one that costs most later

Fill every sink and basin and check the drain. Run every tap for two minutes and check pressure. Flush every WC twice. Check the shower area for correct slope towards the drain — pour a bucket of water and watch where it goes.

Check for damp patches on shared walls, on the ceiling below bathrooms above, and around window reveals. Bengaluru's monsoon will find every one of these, and it is much cheaper to have the builder fix waterproofing before your joinery is against that wall.

Electrical

Test every switch and every socket with a plug tester. Check the DB for labelling and for an RCCB. Count the points against the plan — missing points are common and are the builder's to add.

Note where the AC points, the geyser points and the chimney point actually are, because your interior design has to work with them or pay to move them.

Doors, windows and joinery

Open and close every door and window through its full travel. Check that doors do not foul the floor — a door that scrapes now will scrape worse once a rug is under it. Check window seals, mosquito mesh, and that grills are fixed properly. Check that balcony doors drain outwards.

The documents

Occupancy certificate. Completion certificate. Warranty documents for lifts, pumps, waterproofing and appliances. The as-built electrical and plumbing drawings — ask for these specifically, because your interior designer will need to know where things run before drilling into a wall.

Also collect the society's rules for interior work in writing: permitted hours, weekend restrictions, lift use and protection, debris removal, contractor registration and any refundable deposit.

Then, and only then

Give the snag list to the builder in writing with photographs and a date. Get the fixes done before interiors begin. Starting joinery in a flat with unresolved waterproofing or an unlevel floor is the most expensive shortcut available in this whole process.

Want this applied to your own home? Start a project or read the material library.