Snagging vs Defects: Where the Line Falls

The line between a snag and a defect is a single date: practical completion. A snag is a finish item on the list before you accept the work. A defect is something that surfaces in the 12 months after you accepted it. They sound like synonyms and they are not — they carry different money, different deadlines and a different burden of proof, and the confusion is expensive at exactly the moment you have the least leverage. The estimator breaks a job into stages so you can see where completion sits, and our extensions and loft conversions pages set out how those stages run.

Most homeowners meet these two words in the same week, at the end of a job, from a contractor who is using them interchangeably. That is usually not a trick. It is just that the distinction only matters to the person holding the money, and by then that is you.

Why the distinction is not pedantry

Because the category decides three separate things.

It decides the deadline. A snag has to be closed before practical completion can be certified. A defect has twelve months to appear and a reasonable period after that to be put right.

It decides the money. Retention is released in two halves — part at practical completion, the balance at the end of the defects period. Calling a defect a snag pulls work forward into a window where more of your money is still attached. Calling a snag a defect pushes it back into one where less is.

It decides who has to show what. A snag is visible: it is on the list, both parties walked the job, nobody has to prove anything. A defect requires somebody to establish that the work failed rather than that the building was misused — and twelve months later, with your furniture in and your family living there, that is a materially harder conversation.

What counts as a snag

A snag is work that was done but not finished to the standard specified. The test is not whether it annoys you; it is whether it departs from what was agreed.

1. 01It is in the specification. The item was described in the contract or drawings, and what is in front of you does not match it. A door that binds, a tile cut that is out of line, a socket set where the drawing does not show it.
2. 02It is visible without use. You can see it on a walk round, in daylight, without living in the house first. That is precisely what the pre-completion walk is for.
3. 03It is making-good rather than replacement. Most snags are filling, adjusting, easing, touching in. A snag list with structural items on it is not a snag list — it means the job is not at practical completion at all.

What counts as a defect

A defect is work you accepted as complete that then failed to perform. It reveals itself with use, with weather, or with time.

Sealant that shrinks back over the first winter. A waste connection that only shows itself once the bath is used weekly rather than tested once. A timber floor that cups when the heating runs for a full season. None of these could have been on a snag list, because on the day of the walk round none of them existed to see.

That is the honest reason the defects period exists. A building is a set of assemblies that behave differently once it is warm, occupied and running, and no inspection on a single dry afternoon can anticipate all of it.

The one date that separates them

Practical completion is the moment the work is complete enough for you to take it back and use it, with only minor items outstanding. It is not "the builder has left". It is not "the invoice arrived".

Getting the date right matters more than most people realise, because everything hangs off it: the snag list closes, the defects clock starts, the first half of the retention falls due, and responsibility for the building — insurance, security, damage — passes back to you.

The sentence worth remembering

If it was there to be seen on the day you walked the job, it is a snag. If it appeared afterwards, it is a defect. The date you certify practical completion is the line, so certify it on the day the work is genuinely complete — not on the day it would be convenient for either side.

How the money is actually structured

Retention is what keeps the two categories enforceable. You pay 10% to mobilise and then weekly, against work already done — with 5% of the price held back until the end of the 12-month defects period. Half of that retention releases at practical completion; the balance releases when the defects period ends.

That structure is deliberate. The last stretch of any job is the slowest and least rewarding part of it, and the thing that reliably brings a contractor back for a sealant line or a sticking door is money still attached to the work. Once the final invoice is paid in full, all that remains is goodwill.

Alongside it, every contract carries a 12-month workmanship warranty on second-fix fittings, backed by 2VP and signed by the trades who did the work. A 10-year HomePro insurance-backed guarantee is optional, arranged on request and paid by you directly to HomePro at 2.5% of the contract value.

What neither one covers

Worth saying plainly, because this is where the end of a job turns sour.

What to do at the end of your job

Walk the job properly, in daylight, with the specification in your hand rather than from memory. Write the list yourself before you are shown one. Agree in writing which items are snags and which are being disputed, and why. Then certify practical completion on the day the work is actually complete — because that date starts your twelve months, and a date agreed for convenience shortens the cover you paid for.

2VP is the builder, not a marketplace: one contract, one named project lead, and no introducer fee stacked on the build cost. That matters at this end of the job more than at the start, because there is one party responsible for closing the list and nobody to hand you on to.