How to read a new-build defect report and get your builder to act on it
The report is evidence, not a result. What happens next depends on how you use it, and most owners use it badly on the first attempt.
Published 4 September 2026 · 6 min read · Owner Inspections Pty Ltd
A pre-handover report on a Tarneit build typically comes back with somewhere between fifteen and sixty items. Owners open it, feel alarmed at the number, and then make one of two mistakes: they send the whole document to the builder with no covering position, or they pick the three things that annoy them most and let the rest go.
Neither gets the best result. Here is what the document is actually telling you and how to use it.
The item count is not the headline
Forty items on a new build is unremarkable. Volume construction involves a large number of trades passing through quickly, and a thorough inspector records everything, including small finish items that would take a painter ten minutes. A short list is not proof of a good build; it is often proof of a shallow inspection.
What matters is the mix. Read the classifications before the count.
Structural, safety, non-compliance, finish
- Structural items affect the building’s integrity. These are rare on a new build and always take priority.
- Safety items include balustrade heights and gaps, glazing type in wet areas, missing handrails and electrical safety. These are non-negotiable and are usually the fastest to get actioned.
- Non-compliance items are things built differently from the National Construction Code, the standards or your contract documents. These carry the most weight in a dispute because compliance is objective.
- Finish items are paint, plaster, caulking, door adjustment and the like. Numerous, cheap, and genuinely worth fixing before you move furniture in.
Put it in writing, once, as a numbered list
Verbal walkthroughs with a site supervisor produce agreements nobody can later evidence. Send the report by email, reference the item numbers, and ask for a written response against each number with a rectification date. That single formatting decision changes the dynamic more than anything else you can do.
Keep the tone neutral. You are not making an accusation, you are asking for a schedule.
Time your leverage
The strongest position you will ever hold is between the report and the final payment. Once you have settled and moved in, every item becomes a warranty request competing with the builder’s next job for attention.
This is why the pre-handover inspection is booked before the builder’s own handover walkthrough rather than after it. Going into that meeting with a numbered list changes what the meeting is about.
When the builder disagrees
Some pushback is normal and some of it will be fair. Where an item is genuinely contested, the useful move is not to argue harder but to narrow the question: what standard or tolerance applies, what does the measurement say, and does the built work meet it. A good report has already framed each item that way.
If items remain unresolved, Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria is the first formal step for domestic building disputes, and it expects to see that you raised the issues in writing and gave the builder an opportunity to rectify. The paper trail you built in the first email is what makes that stage straightforward.
Re-inspect before you close it out
Ask for a re-inspection once the builder reports the list complete. Items get marked done that are not done, and items occasionally get worse during rectification. A re-inspection is quoted at a reduced rate because the scope is already defined, and it is the only way to close the list with evidence rather than assurance.
