Snagging Surveys in Hove

On a Hove flat at One Hove Park or a townhouse near Hove Park, the first defects are often cosmetic, but they still matter. Paint misses, patchy plaster, scuffed skirting and uneven mastic work are common. They may look small. They usually show the job was rushed, and our inspectors document them because a buyer's solicitor would not normally pick up finish defects.

Functional faults are next. Doors may not latch properly, windows may not seal, sockets can sit out of square, and kitchen units can be just enough out to annoy you every day. In seafront homes such as Argentum on Kingsway or Aurum Hove Seafront, we also check balcony drainage, external joins and ventilation, because a neat-looking finish can still hide poor workmanship.

Construction and regulatory defects are the ones worth flagging early. That means uneven floors, gaps in skirting, badly fitted kitchens, drainage falls, missing fire stopping, undersized ventilation and cracks that go beyond normal shrinkage. A buyer on a new-build near Hove Station should not have to discover these after moving furniture in, especially when the developer's own defects period is still running.

External works matter too. Garden levels, driveways, boundary treatments and paths often lag behind the main building on a site like Sackville Trading Estate or the Hove Central regeneration. If the brochure showed finished landscaping but the block still has loose paving, open joints or unmade edges, we record it. The developer gets a practical list, trade by trade.

• Paint and plaster defects
• Doors that do not close or latch
• Windows that do not seal
• Missing sealant and poor mastic
• Uneven floors and out-of-square sockets
• Kitchen fitting faults
• Drainage, fire stopping and ventilation issues
• Garden, driveway and boundary items not finished to spec

Hove's new-build pipeline is mostly apartment-led, which changes the snag profile. At Hove Central on the former Sackville Trading Estate, Moda Living is bringing forward 564 build-to-rent homes, while Hyde Housing has planning permission for 306 council flats at the north end of the same site. That means more communal lobbies, lifts, plant rooms, cycle stores and fire compartmentation to inspect, not just the paintwork inside one flat.

The seafront schemes need a different eye. Aurum Hove Seafront, Argentum on Kingsway and Kings House Hove Seafront sit in an exposed strip where salt air and wind-driven rain can expose poor sealant, weak balcony detailing and rushed external finishing. We pay close attention to drainage outlets, threshold heights, balcony falls and the quality of outside space, because a tidy brochure does not tell you how the building has actually been finished.

Hove also has a strong conservation-area footprint, with Brunswick Town, Cliftonville, Hove Station, Old Hove, Pembroke & Princes, Sackville Gardens, The Avenues, The Drive, Tongdean and Willett Estate all under tighter control. Brighton & Hove has 34 conservation areas across the city, covering over 18% of its urban area, and that matters when a development sits beside older terraces or listed buildings such as Hove Library, Hove railway station or the Peace Statue. Planning controls can bite harder on external changes, so we look closely at boundaries, landscaping, rooflines and anything that was supposed to match the approved drawings.

Coastal risk is part of the story too. The coastline between Brighton Marina and the River Adur, which includes Hove, is defended by beaches, chalk cliffs, sea walls and timber groynes, with replacement groynes and thousands of tonnes of shingle being added between the King Alfred Leisure Centre and Second Avenue. Minor erosion is expected over the next 100 years, but that does not help a poorly sealed balcony today. It just means our inspectors treat weatherproofing, drainage and external joins as priority items on local plots.