A snagging list template needs four columns and nothing else: where the defect is, what is wrong, a photograph of it, and how urgent it is. Everything beyond that is decoration that slows the person who has to fix it.
The four columns that matter
Almost every snagging template you can download has between nine and fourteen columns. Reference number, date raised, date due, assigned to, status, sub-status, cost code, sign-off, date closed. They exist because the template was built for a housebuilder tracking two hundred plots, not for one person walking one house.
For your own list, four columns do the entire job:
- 1Location. The room, and where in the room. ‘Second bedroom, above the window’ beats ‘upstairs’.
- 2Defect. What is wrong, in the words a builder would use. Not what you want done about it.
- 3Photograph. One per defect, with the fault marked on the picture if you can.
- 4Priority. Whether it needs doing before you move in, or can wait for the next visit.
Why the long list gets ignored
A site manager receiving a ninety-row spreadsheet does not read ninety rows. They scan it, form a view about whether the person who sent it is being reasonable, and work from that view. It is not fair, but it is what happens, and it is worth designing your list around.
The lists that get worked through share three habits. They separate genuine defects from normal drying-out shrinkage rather than mixing them together. They group by room, because that is the order the joiner walks the house. And every line has a photograph attached, so nobody has to come and look before they can book the work.
A short list of well evidenced defects gets acted on faster than a long list of opinions.
A template you can copy
If you want to run it on paper or in a spreadsheet, this is the whole format. One row per defect, grouped under a heading for each room.
- Room: Kitchen
- Location: Under the sink | Defect: Cupboard door does not close flush, standing about 8mm proud at the top | Photo: IMG_0142 | Priority: Before completion
- Location: Worktop at the hob | Defect: Chip out of the laminate edge, roughly 20mm | Photo: IMG_0147 | Priority: Before completion
- Room: Main bathroom
- Location: Bath, tap end | Defect: Silicone bead broken and lifting away from the tile | Photo: IMG_0151 | Priority: Before completion
That is it. If your template has a column you have not filled in on any row after three rooms, delete the column.
Where templates break down in practice
The template is rarely the reason a snagging list is thin. The reason is that filling it in happens later. You walk the house with a phone, take sixty photographs, and sit down that evening trying to remember which bedroom the cracked architrave was in. Half of what you noticed never reaches the document.
Anything that moves the writing from the evening to the moment you are standing in front of the defect is worth more than a better column layout. That can be as simple as speaking the room name into a voice memo before each photograph. It is the single change that improves most people’s lists.
Before you send it
- 1Read it back as if you were the site manager. Anything that reads as an opinion rather than a fact, rewrite or remove.
- 2Check every line has a photograph. A line without one is the first line they will push back on.
- 3Date it, and keep your copy. The dated record with its photographs is what any escalation rests on.
- 4Send it in writing, not on a doorstep. Email or a portal, so there is a timestamp.
If your developer is registered with the New Homes Quality Board, issues found at a pre-completion inspection that breach warranty technical standards are their responsibility to address, ideally before legal completion or within 30 days where that is not possible. Under an NHBC Buildmark policy the builder warranty period then runs for two years from legal completion, with a free NHBC resolution service available during it.