Checklist
The post-renovation handover checklist
Use this before you accept a property back from a renovation, a builder or a cleaner. It is the list we work to ourselves, and it is deliberately weighted towards the places that get missed rather than the obvious ones.
Take it with you, go room by room, and check in daylight. Most residue and dust is invisible under artificial light and unmissable when the sun hits the surface at an angle, which is exactly when your client, your purchaser or your partner will find it.
Before you start
- Inspect in daylight, and look along surfaces at a low angle rather than straight down at them
- Open everything: every cupboard, drawer, wardrobe and cavity slider
- Run a clean fingertip along the top of doors, frames and skirting
- Take photos of anything you are not happy with, while you are standing in front of it
Kitchen
- Inside every cupboard and drawer, including the corners and the runners
- Above the overhead cabinets and along the top edge of the cabinetry
- Rangehood exterior, filter housing and the wall behind it
- Splashback join, silicone lines and the bench-to-splashback junction
- Appliance exteriors, seals, handles and any remaining stickers or barcodes
- Sink, tapware base and the underside of the spout
- Under the toe-kick and behind the fridge cavity
Bathrooms and laundry
- Grout haze: the cloudy cement film on new tiles that a normal wash will not lift
- Silicone smears along the shower base, bath edge and vanity
- Shower screen glass, hinges, seals and the bottom channel
- Exhaust fan cover and the grille slots
- Behind and under the vanity, including the plumbing
- Toilet cistern top, base, and the pan-to-floor join
- Floor waste grate and the channel around it
Windows, doors and glass
- Internal glass in raking daylight: look for paint spots, plaster splatter and adhesive haze
- Protective film fully removed, including the strip caught under the frame edge
- Window and sliding door tracks, and the drainage holes in the bottom channel
- Frames, sills and the join between frame and plaster
- Door tops, hinges, handles and the strike plate
Floors, walls and detail
- Edges, corners and thresholds: where a machine cannot reach and hand work shows
- Skirting tops and the join between skirting and floor
- Architraves, cornices and any ornamental plaster
- Light fittings, downlight rims, switches, power points and data plates
- Air-conditioning vents, returns and ceiling access panels
- Stair treads, risers, nosings and the balustrade
- Wardrobes, linen presses and the shelf tops inside them
Outside and the rest
- Balcony or alfresco floor, balustrade glass and the drainage channel
- Garage floor, and any material left behind in it
- Meter box, hot water unit surround and the external tap
- The bin area: often where trade waste ends up
- Any room that was sealed off during the works. It will be dustier than the rooms that were not.
The eleven places that get missed most
- Inside the kitchen drawers, past the front row
- The top edge of doors
- Window and sliding door tracks
- Grout haze on new floor tiles
- Above overhead cabinetry
- Exhaust fan covers
- The inside of wardrobes and linen presses
- Downlight rims and switch plates
- Air-conditioning vents and returns
- Skirting tops in rooms that were not renovated
- The room that was closed off during the works
If you have worked through this list and the answer is that it needs doing properly, send us photos. Photograph the worst of what you found. That is exactly what we need to scope it.