Defect Record Preparation Checklist

Decide at the outset that every entry describes something you observed rather than declaring it wrong, and keep that discipline even when you are fairly sure.

Entries phrased as verdicts invite a defence of the verdict, while entries phrased as observations invite somebody to come and look.

Whether anything you notice is actually a defect is a judgement for qualified professionals; an owner record can only say what was visible and when.

Ask who your record should be sent to and in what form, and record that answer before you have accumulated a long list of loose observations.

Lists sent to whoever happened to be on site get handled inconsistently, and half of them never reach the person who can act.

Ask the contractor and appointed professionals how observations are normally handled on this project, and note where your record is meant to fit into that.

Most arrangements already have a route for this, and an owner list running in parallel to it tends to be treated as noise.

Where a formal process for raising items exists in your arrangement, follow it and take any question about its wording to your own legal adviser.

Decide in advance that anything which worries you about water, gas, electricity, smoke or anything appearing to move goes straight to a person rather than onto a list.

Anything that concerns you on safety grounds should be raised at once with the contractor and the relevant qualified professional, never held for a written list.

Keep every observation in one record rather than spread across messages, notes and photographs, and add to it as things come up rather than reconstructing later.

Reconstructed lists lose dates and detail, and it is the dates that make the record worth anything.

Keep individual names out of the entries and describe the work instead, so the record stays about what is there rather than about who is thought to have done it.

Entries naming people are read as accusations, which changes the response and rarely improves the outcome.

Keep each entry to a single observation in a single place, rather than bundling several rooms or several marks into one line that can only be answered partly.

Bundled entries get half attended to and then closed, and the remaining half quietly disappears from the record.

Describe what is visible in ordinary words, such as a gap along a joint or a change in surface, without naming the trade or the cause you suspect.

Descriptions of what is visible can be checked by anybody; speculation about cause can only be argued with.

Avoid words such as terrible, unacceptable or ruined, and write in the same tone you would use if you were reading the entry aloud to a stranger.

Emotive wording makes an entry harder to answer and harder to reuse if the list is passed to somebody else later.

Attach an image to each entry that shows both the immediate detail and enough of the room to place it, rather than a close-up that could be anywhere.

A close-up alone is the single most common reason somebody cannot find the item you are describing.

Note the conditions in which you saw something, particularly where a mark on a wall or floor is only obvious in light coming across the surface.

Anybody arriving at a different time of day may see nothing at all, and the entry then looks like a complaint about nothing.

State what you are asking for on each entry, whether that is somebody to look at it, an explanation of what it is, or simply to record it for now.

Entries with no stated ask get treated as background, and it is often unclear whether the owner wants anything done at all.

Name rooms as they appear on the drawings rather than as your household refers to them, and note the mapping between the two where they differ.

Room names drift during a project, and the person acting on your entry is reading a drawing, not living in the house.

Locate each entry from a fixed feature, such as the wall on your left as you enter or the corner nearest the window, rather than by cardinal direction.

Owners and site staff read compass directions differently inside a building, while a doorway is unambiguous to both.

Describe where something sits in relative terms, such as just above the skirting or at the top of the reveal, rather than attempting a measurement.

Relative positions are reliable and easy to check, while an approximate measurement invites arguments about the measurement instead.

Ask whether you may mark positions with a low-tack marker or a note, and agree how those markers are removed rather than applying anything yourself.

Ask the contractor before putting tape, pencil marks or stickers on any surface; some finishes are damaged by markers that seem harmless.

Give each entry a reference of its own and never reuse a reference, even after an item is closed, so old messages always still point at the right thing.

Reused numbers make earlier correspondence unreadable, because a reply about item four may concern either of two things.

Keep a view of the record grouped by room as well as by date, so somebody coming to look at several items can work through one area at a time.

A list in the order you noticed things sends people back and forth across the property, and items get missed on the way.

Record the date you first noticed each item, and say plainly where you are unsure whether it was there earlier and simply had not been seen.

An honest note that you cannot say when something appeared is far more useful than a confident date that turns out to be wrong.

Check your images from before the work against anything you notice on retained surfaces, and note what those images do or do not show at that spot.

Marks on existing surfaces are the hardest to discuss, and a picture from beforehand usually settles the question quickly.

Look again from exactly the same position after some time has passed, photograph it identically and note whether anything appears different.

Comparison only works from a repeated position, and images taken from wandering positions cannot show change at all.

Note what was happening around the time you noticed something, such as heating being run for the first time, drying out, or heavy rain overnight.

Surrounding conditions are exactly what a professional will ask about, and they are forgotten almost immediately.

Where something appears to have changed in size, position or extent, record that as a separate dated entry rather than editing the original description.

Anything that appears to be moving, spreading or getting worse should be reported promptly to the contractor and a qualified professional rather than monitored alone.

Write down what changed without offering an explanation for it, and add your question about the cause to the list of things to ask instead.

An owner explanation attached to an observation tends to be adopted or argued with, and either way it displaces a proper look.

Keep two separate lists, one for things that differ from what you understood was agreed and one for things you would now prefer differently.

The two need entirely different conversations, and combining them lets the whole record be treated as a wish list.

Before adding an entry, check your own record of what was agreed for that item, and note the reference of the drawing, schedule or message you are relying on.

A surprising share of observations turn out to match what was actually agreed, and checking first saves the credibility of the rest.

Where you cannot tell whether something differs from what was agreed, say so in the entry and ask the question rather than deciding either way.

An entry that admits uncertainty gets a helpful answer, while a wrong assertion gets a correction and nothing else.

Mark entries that relate to something you changed part-way through, and note the date of that change so the sequence is visible to whoever reads the list.

Items downstream of an owner change are the ones most likely to be misread as errors by everybody involved.

Ask whether an area you are looking at is finished before recording anything about it, since a great deal of the list may simply be work still in progress.

Observations recorded on unfinished work waste everybody attention and make the genuine items harder to see.

Whether an area is complete is for the contractor and appointed professionals to state; do not assume from appearance that work has finished there.

Where something looks slightly out of line or uneven, record what you see and ask what range is normal for that material, rather than asserting it is wrong.

What variation is normal for a given material and method is a question for the qualified professionals and manufacturer, never an owner determination.

Send the record through the single route you agreed, rather than mentioning items to whoever is on site, so nothing depends on a conversation nobody wrote down.

Items raised in passing are acted on unpredictably and are impossible to follow up because there is no record they were ever raised.

Send the list as a dated version and keep your copy of exactly what was sent, rather than sending a living document that changes after it has been read.

A moving list makes any response ambiguous, because nobody can say which version an answer applied to.

Add later observations as clearly marked additions with their own date, rather than slipping them into the middle of a list already being worked through.

Inserted items are the ones that get missed, and they make the recipient distrust the numbering of everything else.

Keep the covering message factual and short, stating what the list is, what you are asking for and by which route you would like the response.

A long covering message tends to be answered instead of the list, and the individual entries then go unaddressed.

Say when the property can be reached for anybody coming to look, and note that arrangement in the record so the delay in access is visible later.

Access is a frequent reason items sit unattended, and it is rarely recorded, so the wait appears to be someone else fault.

Avoid handing items directly to trades working in the property, and pass them through the agreed contact even when somebody is standing in the room.

Handing an item to whoever happens to be in the room bypasses whoever is meant to be tracking it; ask who observations should go to and send everything that way.

Keep a status against each entry showing whether it is open, answered, attended to or being disputed, and update it only when you have something in writing.

Statuses updated on the strength of a verbal reassurance are the reason lists appear complete when they are not.

Record what you were told about each entry in the words used by the person who told you, together with their name and the date it was said.

Paraphrased answers drift, and the original wording is what allows a later question to be asked precisely.

Look at each item again after it has been attended to, in the same conditions you first saw it, and record what you now observe rather than closing it on trust.

Items are frequently closed by the person who did the work, and the owner check is the only one made under the original conditions.

Where you are told an item will be dealt with as part of later work, record who said so and what the later work is, so it does not vanish between stages.

Deferred items are the most commonly lost category, because everybody assumes another stage has absorbed them.

Keep closed entries in the record rather than deleting them, and note anything that has now been closed more than once for the same observation.

Recurring items are only visible in a record that retains its history, and repetition is itself worth raising.

Before the end of the works, write down which entries remain unresolved and what you were last told about each, and ask how those items are to be carried forward.

How outstanding items are treated at completion depends on your agreement; take any question about that wording to your own legal adviser.