Snag List

Why snagging is critical

Snags are where the project’s cash and calendar converge. Under FIDIC-style contracts the taking-over certificate — issued once the works are complete except for minor outstanding items — starts the defects liability period, transfers care of the works and insurance risk to the employer, and releases the first half of retention. The second half waits until the defects period closes cleanly.

Open snags sit directly on top of that money: some contracts provide for the employer to withhold up to 150% of the estimated value of open items. A contractor with a bloated, slow-closing snag list is financing the employer’s risk with its own cash, months after the work was “done”.

The volumes are real. UK professional snagging inspections average around 140–150 snags per new-build home, where untrained buyers spot 10–30. Dubai handover inspections report ranges from roughly 30–80 defects per apartment to well over 150 in poorly finished stock, and 300+ in villas — the attributed ranges vary considerably by inspector and by the standard applied, so treat them as directional rather than as a benchmark. The pattern, though, is universal: there are always more snags than anyone expects, and the closing weeks decide whether they are a list or a crisis.

The role of snagging in project performance

• Snag ≠ defect ≠ NCR. A snag is a minor cosmetic or incomplete item caught pre-handover. A defect is a failure against contract or specification, managed post-taking-over under the DLP regime. An NCR is a formal quality record raised during execution, with root cause and disposition. The terms get blurred daily on site; contractually they behave completely differently — and a “snag” that turns out to be systemic, such as cracking traced to missing reinforcement, escalates into NCR territory with different consequences.

• Pre-snagging is the contractor’s leverage. The formal list belongs to the certifying authority — the engineer, architect or employer’s agent. But disciplined contractors run their own pre-snagging, and push it down to subcontractors, before ever inviting the consultant. A consultant walking into a pre-snagged building writes a short list; walking into an un-snagged one, they write an encyclopedia — and every item then needs a de-snagging re-inspection cycle to close.

• Hotels add a second gate. On hospitality projects the operator’s technical services team inspects against brand standards on top of the consultant’s snagging — room by room, FF&E included. Open snags at that gate don’t just delay a certificate; they slip a soft-opening date while pre-opening payroll burns.

• The DLP is a right, not just a liability. During the defects period the contractor has the right to return and remedy at its own cost — almost always cheaper than the employer engaging others and back-charging. And in the UAE the contractual 12 months sits underneath Civil Code decennial liability: contractor and supervising engineer remain jointly liable for ten years for structural defects, a liability that cannot be contracted away. Handover records need to live at least that long.

What happens when snagging goes wrong

Weak pre-snagging produces a bloated consultant list, which produces multiple de-snag rounds with an increasingly frustrated consultant. The taking-over certificate is delayed, liquidated-damages exposure continues, the first retention half stays locked, and the start of the defects period is pushed out.

The opposite failure is just as expensive: pressure to occupy forces a certificate with a long “minor items” annex. Occupied units make access for de-snagging miserable, closure velocity collapses, and the second retention half sits hostage a year later.

Every version of the failure is a records problem as much as a work problem — paper lists that cannot say which items are open, who owns them, or what proof of closure exists.