How to accept an apartment in a new building

Developers often rush buyers of apartments in a new building with the signing of an acceptance certificate. But you shouldn’t rush into this! You must first find out if there are defects that the developer, according to the law, is obliged to eliminate. Our tips site will tell you how to take an apartment in a new building.

To begin with, we will find out in what cases it is worth spending money and contacting professionals to order a checklist and a statement with all the defects that they reveal:

• Long-term construction. The house was built for a long time, the developer may have changed, the deadlines were delayed. Such apartment buildings are often completed urgently, the risk of defects and technology disruption increases dramatically;
• Apartment with expensive finishes. You have decided to pay extra to the developer for a quality repair according to a design project. You need to make sure that the money was not wasted. There is a risk that the developer has saved on finishing by replacing elite finishing materials with affordable analogues. In addition, there is a risk that the repair team could spoil something;
• The house project is atypical, the building is low-rise. According to the practice of specialists, there are usually more defects in such buildings. Atypical projects are often implemented by unqualified and little-known developers.

The price of the service of inspection and acceptance of an apartment by professionals starts from 3 thousand rubles and will depend on the footage.

You can independently inspect the apartment with a democratic fine finish – bring in the furniture and you can play housewarming. There are usually fewer problems with residential areas in the area of ​​mass development, when all buildings are built according to standard designs.

It is worth inviting a friend or acquaintance who knows about construction for an inspection if the White Box was repaired, about which the portal wrote in detail.

Important! According to Russian law, all engineering equipment in a new apartment is guaranteed for three years. All new construction projects have a five-year warranty.

Therefore, even if during the inspection you did not reveal any defects, they were discovered later, you can contact the developer and the management company to eliminate them. However, by this time, the apartment has usually already been renovated, and alteration can be expensive. And it is more difficult to prove that the defect is the developer’s fault after signing the acceptance certificate..

Most often, the following defects are detected in new buildings:

• Chipped plumbing, padded toilets and sinks;
• Damage to corners, doors, windows;
• Distortions on installed windows and doors;
• Wall height differences;
• Uneven floor screed;
• Unconnected sockets.

Most of these defects are easy to identify even for a person far from the construction site..

We advise you to take with you to inspect the apartment in the new building:

• Compact building level-spirit level;
• A powerful flashlight to check every corner;
• Socket tester or at least some compact electrical appliance. Charging for a smartphone is suitable;
• Roulette;
• Apartment documents;
• A notebook and a pen to immediately write down all the identified shortcomings and claims to the developer.

Experts advise to inspect the apartment not by room, but according to a pre-drawn plan. For example, first all the doors, then the windows, all the sockets, plumbing, walls, floor, and so on. That is, for example, first we check the evenness of the screed in all rooms, then we go to the walls and further according to the plan. It’s less likely to miss something important..

Do not forget to open each casement of the windows and check the levelness of the window sills. Check also the glazing of the balcony or loggia.

Important! The permissible deviation when installing double-glazed windows and doors is 2 millimeters per meter.

All plumbing is carefully inspected for chips and cracks. You need to turn on the water – hot and cold at the same time to check the pressure and make sure that nothing is leaking anywhere.

If tiles have already been laid in the apartment, you need to check the evenness of the tile joints, the quality of the grout, and also tap the surface to see if there are any voids left under the finish.

Particular attention should be paid to corners and protrusions – this is where mechanical damage and cracks are most often found.

Assess how the radiators are installed. They should be separated from the bottom of the windowsill by at least 5 centimeters, from the floor – 6 centimeters, and from the wall decoration – at least 2.5 centimeters. It will be possible to check how the heating works only during the season.

According to experts, the inspection of a relatively small apartment takes no more than an hour. The main thing is to make sure that the electrical and plumbing are working properly, the walls and floor are flat, and there are no bubbles or smudges on the ceiling. Much depends on the condition of the apartment for rent – with or without decoration.

Developers in the overwhelming majority of cases correct significant shortcomings without question within two months. For example, they change a cracked toilet or a damaged interior door. Then the owner will be called back for inspection. However, developers often refuse to fix such shortcomings as minor differences in height and casually glued wallpaper. It is believed that the apartment is suitable for living and the buyer will be obliged to sign the acceptance certificate.

You can sign an act, indicating that the apartment is incomplete. And attach to the document a list of detected defects. As a last resort, if the developer refuses to fix the identified problems, you can invite experts to fix them and take legal action.