Snagging list
What is a snagging list: snagging explained, and what happens to the items still open at handover
A snagging list is the itemised record of defects, unfinished items and departures from specification found when near-complete construction or installation work is inspected, written up so each item can be put right, re-checked and closed. It is the document that turns a vague sense that something is not finished into a list somebody owns.
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Worth knowing before you argue about one: snagging is industry usage rather than a defined contractual term, and the word rarely appears in the contract itself (Designing Buildings). What the contract defines is completion and the defects period. The snag list is how the parties get there.
Snag list or punch list? Same document, different word
- Snag list or snagging list: UK, Ireland, Australia and much of the Middle East.
- Punch list: United States and Canada. The name comes from the old practice of punching a hole beside each item as it was completed.
- Deficiency list, defects list, schedule of defects: used across various contract forms and jurisdictions.
Different words, same function. Where they genuinely diverge is in what the underlying contract says about accepting work with items still open, which varies by country and by contract form.
How the snagging process runs
- Inspection. The work is walked, usually shortly before completion is claimed, often room by room or system by system.
- Recording. Each item gets a location, a description, the responsible trade or contractor, a photograph and a target date. Vague entries are the main reason lists stall.
- Rectification. The contractor works the list, marking items ready for re-inspection rather than closing them unilaterally.
- Re-inspection and close-out. Items are verified and closed by the party that raised them. Anything disputed is escalated rather than quietly dropped.
- Carry-over. Items still open at completion are recorded as outstanding and dealt with during the defects period.
A snagging list in practice
A fit-out of a 60-room hotel floor produces 340 snag items at first inspection. Around 200 are cosmetic (paint, sealant lines, door adjustment), 100 are minor mechanical and electrical, and roughly 40 involve rework of covered-up services. The cosmetic items clear in a fortnight. The 40 are the ones that decide whether the floor is accepted, because they need trades back in, in sequence, and some of them require opening up work that was already signed off. The number on the list tells you very little. The composition tells you everything.
How a snagging list and a handover certificate interact
These two documents are the completion pair, and they do opposite jobs. The snagging list records what is still wrong. The handover certificate records that the work was accepted. Both can be true on the same day, and usually are.
Under most contract forms, work can be accepted with items still outstanding, provided they do not prevent the intended use. The snag list is then annexed to the completion or handover certificate as the agreed schedule of open items, and the certificate starts the defects liability period during which they are put right. That annexation is not administrative tidiness. A certificate issued without an attached schedule of outstanding items can be read as acceptance of the work as found, which is a materially different position to be in when a dispute starts.
The certificate also usually triggers part-release of retention, transfer of care of the works, and the end of any liquidated damages. The remaining retention typically follows once the defects period ends and the outstanding items are closed.
What happens to items after acceptance
The regime depends on the contract and the country, and the differences are substantial.
- FIDIC forms: the taking-over certificate starts the defects notification period, commonly 12 months, often extended where significant mechanical and electrical plant is involved. The performance certificate follows once the contractor's obligations are discharged.
- UK new homes: NHBC Buildmark works on a two-year builder warranty period during which the builder is liable to put right defects reported to them, followed by eight years of insurance cover for defects in specified parts of the home (NHBC).
- Commercial fit-out and installation contracts: a defects liability period of 6 to 24 months is common, but the term is whatever the contract says it is.
Statutory rights sit alongside all of this and are country-specific. A snag list is a contractual and practical instrument, not a substitute for whatever consumer or building regulation protection applies locally.
Mistakes worth avoiding
Letting the contractor close its own items. Marked complete and verified complete are different states. Keeping them separate is the whole value of the re-inspection step.
Entries nobody can act on. Damage to skirting reads fine on the day and is useless in six weeks. Room, wall, photograph.
Snagging too late. A list raised the morning acceptance is due becomes a negotiation about whether the items really matter.
Treating the list as the quality system. Snagging catches what was missed. If the list is long every time, the problem sits upstream in the work itself, which is the argument for inspection during the job rather than only at the end. Related: proof of work and proof of work in field service.
