Condo
~100 checkpoints · 3–4 hours on site
฿15,000
- Full unit inspection
- Thermal and moisture survey
- All services tested live
- Report within 48 hours
Don’t accept the keys until someone independent has checked the villa.
A 100 to 150 point pre-handover inspection by a surveyor with 20 years in construction and building surveying — so the defects are the developer’s problem, not yours.
- 20years in construction and building surveying
- 150checkpoints on a large pool villa
- 48hours from inspection to photographic report
- 0developers or agents we work for
01The problem
Handover day is the last day you hold any leverage.
Until you sign, the developer needs something from you. Afterwards, you need something from them. Everything about the conversation changes at that moment.
- 01
The money moves, and so does the argument
The final payment is the only real pressure a buyer has. Once it clears and the transfer is signed, a defect stops being a condition of completion and becomes a favour you are asking for. The same crack, the same failed pump, the same hollow floor — but now the cost and the chasing are yours.
- 02
The defects-liability clock starts and does not stop
Thai new-build contracts carry a finite defects-liability period, and it runs from handover, not from the day you notice something. Monsoon-driven faults in particular tend to surface months later. A documented snag list dated at handover is what keeps those items inside the warranty rather than outside it.
- 03
The defects that cost most are the ones you cannot see
An empty, freshly cleaned room shows almost nothing. Falls to drainage, waterproofing laps and upstands, pool plant and bonding, screed voids under floor tiles, earthing at wet areas — none of it is visible to a buyer walking through with an agent. All of it is expensive once you own it.
02What we do
We inspect the property before you accept it, and we write down everything that is wrong.
We attend the property before handover, usually the week of your appointment, and work through a structured checklist scaled to the property type — around 100 points for a condo, 150 or more for a large pool villa. Services are tested live rather than looked at: taps run, sockets tested for polarity and earthing, RCDs tripped, air conditioning run to temperature, pool plant put through its cycle, floor tiles percussion-tested for voids, moisture meter and thermal camera used on anything that reads wrong. Every point is recorded as pass, defect or observation, and you receive a photographic report within 48 hours.
Moisture meter · master ensuite, north wall
24%
Adjacent dry wall reads 8–11%. A number like this is what turns a disagreement into a rectification instruction.
The major categories
- Structure & envelope
- Roof & waterproofing
- External works & drainage
- Windows, doors & glazing
- Internal finishes
- Joinery & fitted furniture
- Electrical
- Plumbing & sanitary
- Air conditioning & ventilation
- Swimming pool & plant
- Kitchen & appliances
- Safety, compliance & documentation
03Who it’s for
Four points in a purchase where an independent inspection changes the outcome.
- 01
New-build villa handover
Booked around your handover appointment. Full inspection including pool, plant, external works and drainage, so the snag list goes to the developer while the final payment is still outstanding.
- 02
New-build condo handover
Unit inspection plus the parts of the common areas that affect you — the riser, your drainage, the balcony threshold and waterproofing, the AC condensate route and the meter positions.
- 03
Secondary market pre-purchase
Before you commit on a resale villa or condo. What has been repaired, what has been covered up, what is about to need money — reported plainly so you can price it into the offer or walk away.
- 04
Defects-liability re-inspection
You are inside the warranty period and something is not right. We inspect, document it properly against the contract, and give you a report the developer can act on rather than argue with.
An inspector who also quotes for the remedial work has a reason to find defects. One on a developer’s panel has a reason not to.
Both are compromised, in opposite directions. We take a fixed fee from the buyer and nothing from anyone else.
04Who inspects
Twenty years on building sites, applied to your villa.
I have spent twenty years in construction and building surveying, most of it on sites where the defect was found before the client saw it rather than afterwards. That background is the whole product. It is what makes a hollow-sounding floor tile a note about an incomplete adhesive bed instead of a shrug, what makes a slightly wrong condensate fall a predictable ceiling stain twelve months out, and what makes a missing earth bond at a pool a matter to raise before anybody swims. I work to UK survey methodology, applied to how buildings are actually built here.
05Process
Four steps, and the fourth is the one most people skip.
- 01
Book
Tell us your handover date and we set the inspection around it — ideally a few days before, so there is time to issue the list and still hold the final payment.
- 02
Inspect
Three to six hours on site depending on the property, longer for a large villa. Every system tested under load, not just looked at. You are welcome to attend.
- 03
Report
A photographic snag list within 48 hours. Every defect located by room and elevation, classified by severity, with a recommended remedy and a reference number.
- 04
Rectify
You issue the list to the developer. We return and check each item against its reference, and report what was fixed, what was fixed badly and what was quietly ignored.
06The report
This is what you actually receive.
An anonymised extract from a villa handover report. The format is the product: a developer’s site manager should be able to work from it without asking you a single question.
08Fees
One visit, one fee, no percentage of anything.
Prices in Thai Baht, inclusive, for a single inspection and the report that follows it.
Pool Villa, 2 bed
~130 checkpoints · 5–6 hours on site
฿30,000
- Everything in the condo inspection
- Pool, plant and bonding
- Drainage and external works
- Roof and waterproofing
Pool Villa, 3–4 bed
150+ checkpoints · full day on site
฿40,000
- Everything in the two-bed inspection
- Extended plant and services
- Full external and landscape drainage
- Roof void where accessible
09Questions
The four we are asked first.
As soon as the developer gives you a handover window, even a provisional one. The inspection itself wants to sit three to seven days before your handover appointment: late enough that the property is genuinely finished, early enough that you receive the report and can issue the snag list while the final payment is still outstanding. Inspections cluster heavily around month-end and quarter-end because developers push completions to those dates, so the diary fills. If your date moves — and it often does — we move with it at no charge.
Yes, and it is worth doing where the developer allows it. Having a surveyor in the room changes the walkthrough from a signing ceremony into a technical conversation, and it means the defects are discussed rather than deferred. It is arranged at booking and quoted separately according to the time needed, because a handover appointment can run to a few hours. Most buyers do the full inspection first and then have the inspector attend the walkthrough with the report already in hand — that is much the stronger position.
It happens, and it is almost always resolved. Your purchase contract entitles you to inspect the property you are buying before you accept it, and to bring whoever you choose. A refusal is usually a site manager making a decision above their level rather than a company position, and a written request from you referencing the contract normally settles it within a day. If access is genuinely refused, that refusal is itself worth documenting in writing before you sign anything — a developer unwilling to let an independent surveyor look at the property is telling you something.
This is what the report format is built for. Every item is photographed, located by room and elevation, and, where it can be measured, supported by a reading — a moisture percentage, a fall in millimetres over a metre, a thermal image, a trip time. That is very difficult to argue with, which is why most disputes evaporate at the report stage. Where a genuine technical disagreement remains, we will put the reasoning in writing for the developer or your lawyer, and where an item falls outside our scope we say so and tell you which professional to appoint.
Inspections book out around handover dates. Get yours in the diary early.
Tell us the date on your handover letter and we will work back from it.