Snagging Survey in London

A snagging survey is not just a cosmetic walk-through. In London, our inspectors pick up paint misses, plaster hollows, scuffed skirting, patch repairs, and other finish faults that are easy to miss in a bright show flat off Canary Wharf or a new house in Barnet. The same visit also catches chipped tiles, damaged worktops, poor mastic, and unfinished trims, which are common on homes that have been turned around quickly for handover.

Functional faults show up too. Doors that do not latch in a W1 apartment, windows that do not seal against wind on a high floor in E14, sockets that sit out of square in a Newham maisonette, or extractor fans that never really clear steam in a Hackney kitchen all need logging. We document them because they affect use, not just appearance, and because a buyer often notices them only after moving furniture in.

The bigger concerns are construction and regulatory defects. On London schemes we look for uneven floors, poor kitchen tolerances, gaps in skirting, missing fire stopping, undersized ventilation, drainage falls that do not work, and signs of structural movement that go beyond normal shrinkage. A buyer's solicitor will not crawl through a service riser or test every sealant line, but our inspectors will, and that matters on apartment-led schemes from SE1 to E16.

• Paint and plaster defects
• Doors, windows and locks
• Missing sealant and poor finishing
• Fire stopping, ventilation and drainage issues

London is a city of brick, stone, and glass. A block in Canary Wharf with a curtain wall facade needs different checks from a Victorian terrace in Camden or an Edwardian semi in Waltham Forest, and the surface finish often hides how much of the envelope is still settling. London Stock brick, Portland stone, and modern glazing all behave differently, which is why a snagging list has to be precise rather than generic.

The geology matters too. The London Basin sits on Chalk and London Clay, and that clay is highly shrinkable. London has the highest shrink-swell clay hazard in the country, with one in 50 houses in London and the South East affected by subsidence, and projections suggesting affected properties could rise from 20% in 1990 to 43% by 2030 and over 50% by 2070. We pay close attention to cracks wider than 3mm, sticky windows, uneven floors, and gaps that can point to movement rather than simple drying out.

Flood risk is part of the picture as well. Around 15% of London sits in a floodplain, almost 320,000 properties are at high risk of surface water flooding, and one in eight homes in the city are in high-risk zones. East London, especially Tower Hamlets, Newham, and Hackney, was built on former marshland that has lost over 85% of its natural water absorption capacity, so a ground-floor maisonette or basement can show damp, drainage, and sewer issues long before the paint starts to fail.

New-build work in London does not happen in a vacuum. The city has over 1,000 Conservation Areas across 35 Local Planning Authorities, with places like Kensington Gardens, Sloane Street, Soho, Mayfair, and St. James's setting a high bar for external finishes. The City of London alone has 28 conservation areas, including Leadenhall Market, Fenchurch Street Station, and Postman's Park, so cladding, windows, railings, and roof details can be scrutinised hard by planners as well as by a buyer.

The defect pattern repeats across the capital. On modern schemes from E14 to SE1, our London reports often include paint, plaster, sealant, doors, windows, kitchen fit, garden levels, and unfinished external paths. That mix is no surprise when 16% of flats were built after 1995 but only 5.3% of houses were built after 1995, because apartment-led development brings more fire stopping, ventilation, balcony detailing, and service-zone checks into the snag list. Damp and mould also matter here, with two in five Londoners reporting that they have experienced them in their homes.