Practical completion (PCI) inspection

Before you sign off and take the keys. The defect list you hand your builder — written by someone who has built.

When you need it: Your new home is finished and the builder wants your signature.

What it costs

$935 flat feeinc. GST ($850 + GST)

The signature is the point

Your builder has finished and wants practical completion signed off. That signature changes your position, and it is worth understanding how before you give it.

Before you sign, unfinished and defective work is the builder's to complete under the contract, with the work still live and the trades still on site. After you sign, it moves into the defects liability period, which is a different process with a different pace. Nothing becomes impossible. Everything becomes slower.

This inspection exists to produce a defects list before that moment, in a form the builder can work from.

This is not an AS 4349.1 inspection

Worth stating plainly, because plenty of operators imply otherwise. AS 4349.1 governs pre-purchase inspection of residential buildings, and its own scope says it does not cover assessment of a building under construction.

A practical completion inspection is contract work. It compares what has been built against what was specified, drawn and approved, and against the standard of workmanship the contract requires. That is a different question from the one a pre-purchase inspection asks, which is how a house of its age is holding up.

What gets found at handover

Wet areas, every time. Falls to floor wastes, waterproofing at floor-to-wall junctions, shower screens and their seals. It is the most commonly failed part of a new build and the most expensive to revisit once the tiler has gone.

Then the things that are visible but easy to sign past: door and window operation, gaps and reveals, paint finish and coverage, tiling lippage and grout, cabinetry alignment and drawer runners, silicone lines, and whether the tap that was meant to be there is there.

Roof space where there is safe access, because a new roof is where tie-down and batten fixing can still be seen before insulation goes over the top of everything. Roof plumbing, flashings and downpipes, and where the water actually goes when it leaves the roof.

Site drainage and levels, external paving falls, and whether stormwater has been directed away from the slab rather than towards it.

Two compliance items people forget at handover

Smoke alarms have to be interconnected in dwellings built on a permit applied for from 1 May 2015. It is a specification item, it is easy to claim and easy to test — press one and stand in another room. It takes ten seconds and it is on our list.

Residual current devices: two on the switchboard, covering the circuits. Cheap to fix now, tedious later.

How the list is written

Each item photographed, located, and described in terms the builder's supervisor can act on without a phone call. A list that says "poor paint finish" starts an argument. A list that says which wall, which coat, and what it looks like does not.

Items are separated into what has to be rectified before completion and what is genuinely minor, so the important things are not buried under the trivial.

Cost and timing

A flat fee of $850 for the final handover inspection. Book it with enough room before the handover date that the builder has time to act — a defects list delivered the afternoon before settlement helps nobody.

If you want the build checked as it goes up rather than only at the end, staged inspections are the better instrument, and the two are commonly used together.

The inspection before you sign off

Practical completion is the point where the builder says the house is finished and asks you to accept it and make the final payment. It is the last moment where the full weight of the contract is on your side, and once you sign off and pay, your leverage to have defects corrected drops sharply. A practical completion inspection, sometimes called a PCI or handover inspection, exists to make sure the house you are accepting is actually finished and free of defects before you give up that leverage.

What it looks for

At handover almost everything structural is buried, so a PCI is largely an inspection of finishes and function, and there is a lot of both. Every surface: walls, ceilings, paint, tiling, cornices, checked for the defects that a rushed final trade leaves behind, the roller marks, the cracked tiles, the gaps at the cornice, the paint over hardware. Every fitting and fixture: doors and windows that open, close and lock, cabinetry that sits square and runs true, taps and toilets that work, the hot water that arrives. And the things a builder hopes you will not check on the day: the fall on the shower floor, the seal at the wet-area junctions, the flashing where the new roof meets the wall, the drainage that carries water away from rather than toward the house.

The defect list is the point

The output of a PCI is a defect list, and its value is in being complete and specific. A vague list is easy for a builder to dismiss; a list that names each defect, locates it, and photographs it is one they have to address. Under most building contracts the builder is obliged to rectify defects identified at practical completion, but only if they are actually identified, and the burden of finding them is effectively on you. What you do not list, you accept. A thorough PCI is the difference between a defect fixed at the builder's cost now and one you discover after you have moved in and signed away the leverage to have it fixed.

Why an independent inspection matters here

The builder's own sign-off and yours are not the same thing. The builder has an interest in the house being accepted; you have an interest in it being right. An independent inspector working for you, who has built houses and knows where the corners get cut under deadline pressure, finds the things an untrained walk-through misses, and states them in terms that hold up when the builder pushes back. On a new home that is the largest purchase most people make, the cost of the inspection is trivial against the cost of accepting a house with defects you did not know to look for.

Why the builder's handover is not a neutral check

At practical completion the builder presents the house as finished and asks you to accept it and release the final payment. The builder's own sign-off is a genuine check, but it is not a neutral one, and it is not made on your behalf. The builder has an interest in the house being accepted: the job is done, the site can be handed back, and the final and largest payment is released. That interest is not sinister, it is simply the position they are in, and it is a different position from yours. You have an interest in the house being right, in every defect being found and fixed while the builder is still obliged to fix it, before you sign away the leverage that obligation depends on.

An independent inspection at this point works only for you. The inspector has no stake in the house being accepted and no relationship with the builder to protect. Their job is to walk the house against the plans and the standard, find what a hopeful walk-through would miss, and hand you a defect list specific enough that the builder has to act on it. On the largest purchase most people make, that independent set of eyes at the one moment your leverage is at its highest is worth many times what it costs.

Where the corners get cut under deadline

Practical completion arrives at the end of a build, when the program is often behind, the trades are being pushed to finish, and the pressure to hand over is at its peak. That is exactly the environment in which the small things get rushed, and the small things are what a handover inspection is largely about. The last coat of paint applied quickly leaves roller marks, runs, and patches over hardware. The final tiling leaves a cracked tile or a lippage nobody chased. The cornice has a gap at the corner. A door does not quite close, a window does not quite lock, a cabinet door is not hung true, a drawer runs rough.

None of these is structural, and that is the point: at handover the structure is buried and what is left to inspect is finishes and function, in enormous quantity. There are hundreds of individual things to check, every surface and every fitting, and doing it properly is slow and methodical work. It is also the kind of work a homeowner walking through their nearly finished house is least equipped to do, because they are looking at the whole and feeling excited, not checking the fall on the shower floor and the seal at the wet-area junctions and the flashing where the new roof meets the wall. Those quieter items, the ones that will actually cause trouble later, are the ones an experienced inspector goes looking for while everyone else is admiring the kitchen.

What happens after the list

The output of the inspection is a defect list, and what makes it useful is what happens next. Under most building contracts the builder is obliged to rectify defects identified at practical completion, but that obligation only bites on defects that are actually identified and documented. A vague complaint is easy to wave away; a numbered, located, photographed item is not. So the list goes to the builder as a clear schedule of what needs attention, and the defects are re-checked once the builder reports them fixed, because "fixed" and "reported fixed" are not always the same thing. The value of the exercise is not in producing the list, it is in the list being complete and specific enough that the things on it actually get done before you make the final payment and the leverage is gone.