Every autumn, plenty of new build buyers are offered the same tempting prospect: the chance to be in their new home for Christmas. It is an exciting thought, and for many people it works out well. But the final weeks of the year are also among the busiest on a building site, and that pressure can show up in the finish of your home.
That is not a reason to put off your move. It is a reason to go into completion with your eyes open, to know your rights, and to make sure any snags are on record before everyone stops for the festive break. Here is what you need to know.
Many housebuilders work to completion targets at the end of the calendar year or their financial year. When a development is racing to hand over a batch of homes, site managers and trades are often finishing several plots at once. The final stages of a build, such as decorating, mastic and sealant, fitting doors and ironmongery, cleaning and external works, are exactly the jobs that get squeezed when time runs short.
In our experience, a rushed finish tends to show up as the kind of defects we record on almost every inspection: patchy paintwork, gaps in sealant, doors that catch or will not latch, missing fittings and damaged surfaces. We looked at the wider evidence in our article 141 Defects in a Single New Home: What Two Decades of Snagging Data Tells Buyers, and the message is the same whatever the time of year: never assume a new home is finished just because it has been signed off.
Your developer cannot complete on an unfinished home
If your developer is registered with the New Homes Quality Board (you can check the NHQB Register of Developers), the New Homes Quality Code applies to your purchase. The current version applies to homes reserved from 2 March 2026, and the original version applies to homes reserved before that date.
The current Code is clear that legal completion must only take place on a “complete new home”, and that the developer must not offer you an incentive, financial or otherwise, to move into or complete on a home that is not complete. For a house, that broadly means every room, space and facility is finished for its intended purpose, there is a safe entrance and emergency exit route, and any remaining work is only decorative, correcting faults, relating to shared areas or switching from temporary to permanent services, and does not affect your ability to live there safely.
At completion, the developer must also give you a Schedule of Incomplete Work, with a statement of when the outstanding work and any defects will be put right. If you are being encouraged to complete before Christmas, it is perfectly reasonable to ask what will still be outstanding on the day and to see that in writing.
Your right to a pre-completion inspection
Under the New Homes Quality Code, your developer must give you the opportunity to have a pre-completion inspection carried out before the completion date, normally after the notice to complete has been served (or earlier, if you and the developer both agree). You can appoint a suitably qualified inspector to do this on your behalf. Under the current version of the Code you can also do the inspection yourself, although the developer must tell you that it was designed to be carried out by a professional and that you may miss things.
The inspection uses a standard NHQB checklist. Under the current Code, where it finds issues that breach the warranty provider’s technical standards, the developer is responsible for putting them right, ideally before legal completion or within 30 days if that is not possible. It is worth being realistic, too: a pre-completion inspection is not designed to delay completion, and minor snags will usually be dealt with through the developer’s after-sales service once you have moved in.
Timing matters at this time of year. The notice to complete can be short, so it helps to book your inspector as soon as you know your likely completion date. Our Pre-Completion Inspections follow the NHQB checklist, and you can read more about how they compare with a full snagging inspection in Pre-Completion (PCI) vs. Standard Snagging Inspections: What are the Differences?
If your developer is not registered with the NHQB, check which consumer code, if any, applies to your purchase and ask the developer directly whether they will allow an inspection before completion. If not, a Standard Inspection soon after you move in is the next best thing.
Snagging in winter: what is different?
Inspecting a home in November or December brings a few practical challenges. The NHQB checklist and NHBC’s guidance on finishes judge internal walls in natural daylight from a distance of at least two metres, without shining a light across the surface. With the light fading by mid-afternoon in December, try to arrange any inspection or handover visit for the middle of the day. Our guide Is That Snag Acceptable? A Quick Guide to NHBC Chapter 9.1 explains how finishes are judged.
Wet weather has an upside. Rain shows up problems that can hide in summer, such as leaking gutters and downpipes, water pooling on paths and driveways, and damp around doors and windows. Take a look outside after a downpour and note anything that seems wrong.
Cold weather also means you will be running the heating from day one. As a new home dries out, some hairline cracking and minor movement is normal, and we explain why in What is Shrinkage? If your new home has an air source heat pump, ask to be shown how it works before you move in, because it behaves quite differently from a gas boiler.
Finally, gardens, turf and external landscaping are often left until the weather improves. That can be perfectly reasonable, but make sure the work appears on your Schedule of Incomplete Work with a date. Our article When to Lay New Turf at Your New Build Home explains why timing matters.
Get your snags on record before the festive break
Whenever you complete, report snags to your developer in writing as soon as you find them, keep copies of everything you send, and take dated photographs. Under the New Homes Quality Code, developers must provide an after-sales service for at least two years after completion. The current version also says that, in most situations, they should be able to settle an after-sales issue within 30 days, and that if there is a delay they must explain why and update you at least once a month.
Sending your snagging list before the Christmas break gives the developer time to log it and plan the work, rather than finding a backlog in January. Many sites and customer care teams work reduced hours over the festive period, so it is worth checking with yours.
If things do not progress, you can make a formal complaint under the developer’s complaints procedure. If the complaint is still not resolved after eight weeks, or you are unhappy with the developer’s final response, and your developer is registered, you can refer it to the New Homes Ombudsman Service. Customers have two years from reservation or completion, whichever is later, to complain and refer a complaint. Figures published by the Ombudsman in September 2026 showed formal complaints more than tripling in 2025/26, with defects and snagging the issues homeowners raised most often. The Ombudsman also found that slow responses and poor communication, rather than the original defect, often turned straightforward problems into prolonged disputes, as Property Industry Eye reported. Clear, written, well-documented snagging reports help avoid that. Our Defect Escalation Process page and our article How long should a builder take to fix all my snags? explain the next steps in more detail.
A snagging inspection is about the quality of finish and workmanship. If you notice signs of something more serious, such as significant cracking, structural movement or water getting into the fabric of the building, raise it with your developer and your warranty provider straight away. These issues are outside the scope of a standard snagging inspection and may need a suitably qualified professional, or one of our tailored and invasive building inspections.
Thinking about an inspection before Christmas?
Whether you would like a Pre-Completion Inspection before you complete or a Standard Inspection once you have moved in, our independent inspectors can give you a clear, detailed report to send to your developer. Our Standard Inspection includes a thermal inspection, our Standard Plus Inspection adds a re-inspection to check the work has been done, and our reports are issued within two working days of the inspection. You can view our fees, book online, or call us on 0845 22 66 486 if you would like to talk it through.