Snagging Survey Chatham

Cosmetic defects are the easiest to see, but they are not the only things our inspectors find in Chatham homes. Paint patches, plaster ripples, scuffed skirting, and careless mastic work show up fast in a property that has only just been handed over. A buyer in ME4 may notice the house looks finished from across the room, then see the imperfections once daylight hits the wall.

Functional defects are different. Doors can fail to latch, windows can fail to seal, sockets can sit out of square, and kitchen units can be fitted with tolerances that look fine in the sales office but do not hold up in the house. In a newly built home around ME5, those faults can affect daily use from the first week, which is why our reports put the issue in plain language and back it up with photos.

We also look for construction defects and items that a buyer's solicitor would not normally pick up. Uneven floors, gaps in skirting, poor kitchen alignment, missing sealant, drainage falls that do not look right, fire stopping concerns, and ventilation that looks undersized all matter. Chatham buyers paying close to the local new-build average of £574,000 should not have to discover those problems after the keys are in their hand.

• Paint and plaster defects
• Doors, windows, and ironmongery issues
• Kitchen fitting and sealant gaps
• Drainage, fire stopping, and ventilation concerns

Verified development names inside Chatham's ME4 and ME5 postcodes were not clear in the initial search, so we do not guess at estate names or builder claims. What we can say is that Chatham has a lively new-build pricing spread, with established homes averaging £299,000 and new builds averaging £574,000. That spread alone tells you why a detailed snagging inspection is worth doing before the builder's paperwork moves to warranty language.

homedata.co.uk records 896 property sales in the last 12 months, with 25.7% of those sales, or 230 properties, sitting in the £300,000-£400,000 band. Another 24.8%, or 222 properties, sold between £250,000 and £300,000. In a market with that much movement, minor defects do not stay minor for long. A poorly finished threshold, an uneven driveway edge, or a window that does not seal properly can become a recurring annoyance as soon as you start living there.

Asked another way, Chatham buyers are often paying real new-build money for homes that still need careful checking. home.co.uk records asking prices in the area at £303,846, while the wider South East has seen a +1.8% change year-on-year, with an average house price of £385,000 according to homedata.co.uk. We focus on the state of the actual plot in front of us, not the brochure wording. That keeps the report grounded in the property, not the sales pitch.

We also pay close attention to the sort of defects that show up on fresh developments across Medway, especially where handover schedules are tight. Paint touch-ups can hide plaster issues, flooring can mask gaps at the perimeter, and garden levels can be left short of what was promised. None of those jobs are glamorous, but they are all fixable if they are recorded early.