Snagging & Defects List

What this tool does

CM8-107 is a defects and snagging register for the handover of a building, a fit-out or a plot. You raise a defect against a location, an element and a trade; it works out how long each one has been open, flags the ones that have run past their target date, shows which trade and which room are holding the job up, and prints a report you can issue to a contractor, a client or a warranty provider.

Everything runs inside this one file. There is no account, no upload and no network request, so addresses, plot numbers, client names and contractor performance never leave the computer you are using. That last one matters: a defects list is a record of somebody's work, and it tends to be read that way.

What counts as a defect

A defect is work that does not meet the specification, the drawings, the contract or the standard a reasonable person would expect of that trade. Three things are commonly confused with it, and mixing them into the same list is the fastest way to lose an argument about it:

• A variation or extra — something you have decided you want that was never in the scope. It belongs in a written instruction with a price against it, not here.
• Damage after handover — caused by moving in, by another trade, or by use. Record when and by whom, because liability for it usually sits somewhere else.
• Wear, shrinkage and settlement — hairline cracking at plasterboard joints and door adjustment in the first heating season are normal in most contracts and are often excluded.

The tool cannot tell these apart. It records what you enter. Use the rejected status, with a note saying why and who agreed it, for anything raised that turns out not to be a defect — a rejected item that stays on the list with a reason attached is far more useful than one that quietly disappears.

Recording one properly

A defect that cannot be found is a defect that does not get fixed. Two fields carry the whole weight:

• Location — specific enough that somebody who was not there can walk straight to it. “Plot 12 — Bedroom 2” beats “upstairs”. Keep the wording identical between defects in the same room, or the location summary will split one room into three.
• What is wrong — the fault and where on the element it is, in plain words, with a rough size. “Plaster blown over about 300 mm beside the meter cupboard door” is actionable. “Bad plastering” is not, and it reads badly if the list is ever produced in a dispute.

Describe the fault, not the fix. Deciding how to repair something is the trade's job, and a prescribed fix written into the register can shift responsibility for the outcome onto you.

Severity

Severity decides the order the list gets worked through and, for safety items, how long is allowed.

• Severity — Meaning
• Cosmetic — Appearance only. Everything works.
• Minor — A small fault, no loss of use.
• Major — Loss of use, or it will get worse if it is left.
• Safety — Somebody could be hurt.

Safety defects use the shorter allowance set on the Settings tab, so they age against a tighter clock than everything else. A handover with open safety items is not a handover, however few of them there are — the count is what matters, not the proportion.

Status, and why “fixed” is not “closed”

Five statuses: open, in progress, fixed (awaiting check), verified (signed off) and rejected.

By default, only verified and rejected count as closed. “Fixed” means somebody said the work was done. Until it has been looked at, it is a claim, not a fact, and a list that treats claims as completions will tell you a building is ready when it is not.

If your process genuinely closes items on the contractor's word, turn on Count “fixed, awaiting check” as closed on the Settings tab. Every figure in the tool changes when you do, so say which basis you used whenever you quote a close rate to anybody.

Dates, ageing and overdue

Age is measured from the date raised. Where a defect is closed, the clock stops on the date closed; where it is not, it runs to today, so an open list gets older every time you open the file.

Most real lists have target dates missing on half the rows. Rather than let those defects escape the ageing entirely, the tool falls back on the allowance set in the settings:

A defect with a target date is always measured against that date, never against the allowance. If you would rather that defects without a target date could never be overdue, turn off Use the allowed time when no target date is entered — the overdue count will fall, and it will mean less.

Closed defects are never overdue, even if they were closed long after their target date. If you need to measure lateness at closure rather than lateness now, compare the days-open figure against the allowance in the exported CSV.

Average days to close

This is the figure most often quoted and most often calculated wrongly.

Closed defects only. An open defect has not finished; its age so far is not the time it took to close, because it has not closed. Including open items counts every one of them before it has run its full course, which understates how long the work actually takes — and if your open items happen to be old ones, it can just as easily push the figure above the true closed-only average. Either way the number is no longer the average time to close anything. The tile states how many defects it counted, so you can see at a glance that it is not the full list.

Where nothing has closed yet the tile shows a dash rather than a zero. Zero would read as instant closure, which is the opposite of the truth. Be careful with small numbers too: with three closed defects the average is one job's worth of luck, and the location summary shows an average against locations with a single closed defect, where it is simply that defect's age.

Close rate moves when defects are added as well as when they are closed, so it falls during an inspection even though nothing went backwards. Read it alongside the raised-against-closed chart, not on its own.

Cost to rectify

Enter a cost where you know one. The tile totals what has been entered and tells you how many defects carry a figure, because the total is only a total of the priced ones — an unpriced defect contributes nothing and quietly flatters the number. Nothing is estimated on your behalf.

Decide before you start whose cost you are recording: the contractor's cost to put it right, or your cost to have somebody else do it. They are different numbers and mixing them produces a total that means neither. The tool applies no overheads, no contingency and no retention calculation.

A rejected defect cannot carry a cost, and the tool will say so. If a rejected item did cost you something, it was not a rejected defect.

Reading the charts and tables

By trade ranks trades by defect count, with the open count and the overdue count written alongside. A trade with many defects that are all closed is not your problem today; a trade with four open and three overdue is.

By severity shows the shape of the list. Almost entirely cosmetic and it is a decorating snag list; heavy with major items and the work was not finished before it was offered for handover.

Raised against closed puts the two monthly counts in the same column, one above the other. The combined height is meaningless — compare the two colours, and read the figure under each month, which is the number still open at the end of it. That running figure is the honest measure of progress.

Open defects by trade lists what is left, oldest first, with the overdue and safety counts and the average age per trade. Summary by location gives open and closed counts, a close rate and an average days to close for each room, plot or area, so you can see which are ready to hand over.

Using it at handover

Inspect room by room and record everything in one pass. A second visit finds different things, and a list assembled from three visits, two phone calls and a text message is a list nobody can agree.

Issue the whole register, not a summary. Filter to one trade and print, and each contractor gets only their own items with their own dates — the filter is printed on the report, so the scope of what you issued is on the face of it.

Agree the target dates rather than imposing them, and record who raised each item. When a defect is disputed, what settles it is a specific description, a date, a named person and a photograph — the tool holds the first three, and it deliberately does not hold photographs, so keep those in a folder named to match your references.

Re-inspect before you sign anything off. Change status to verified only after somebody has looked at the work, and put who checked it in the notes.

Printing and sharing

Print Report builds a report from whatever the current filter shows: header, headline figures, all four charts, both summary tables, the full register and your closing notes. Print to PDF to issue it.

The scope line under the title states the filter in force. Clear the filters before issuing anything described as the full list, and check whether the “fixed counts as closed” setting is on before quoting a close rate to anybody.

Saving your work

Defects, settings and the report header are written to this browser's local storage as you type, and the toolbar shows the time of the last save. That storage belongs to one browser on one computer: another browser, a private window, a second machine or a clean-up tool that clears site data will not have it.

Treat Export .json as the real save — one file containing everything, which Import .json restores anywhere. Export CSV gives you the register for spreadsheet work and includes every filtered record, not only those drawn on screen. Reset asks twice, then erases everything this tool has stored. There is no undo.

Accuracy & disclaimer

This tool records what you enter and calculates from it. It cannot inspect anything. It cannot tell whether an item is a defect, a variation or fair wear; whether it falls inside a defects liability period, a warranty or a limitation period; who is liable to put it right; or whether a repair meets the specification.

Defects liability periods, retention releases, practical completion, warranty schemes, tolerance standards and the notices that have to be served differ by country and by contract. This is a record-keeping and calculation aid, not legal advice, not a contract notice, and not a substitute for a competent inspection by somebody who has been on site.