Snagging or maintenance — which does your property need?

People use the two words as if they were interchangeable. They are not, and the difference decides who pays.

Snagging is about work that was never done properly in the first place. Maintenance is about work that was done properly and has since worn out.

Snagging

Snagging is the inspection of a new or newly handed-over property to find defects and unfinished work, recorded item by item with photographs.

It covers things like:

• Doors that bind, do not latch, or were hung out of square
• Tiling that is lipped, hollow underneath, or grouted badly
• Paint defects, overspray, and surfaces that were never properly finished
• Sanitary ware that leaks, drains slowly, or was sealed badly
• AC that does not reach temperature, or drains that were never commissioned
• Sockets that are dead, switched the wrong way round, or not level
• Joinery with gaps, misaligned doors, or runners that were never adjusted

The point of a snag list is that these are things the builder should have got right. They are defects, not wear.

When to do it: before you take handover if you can, and in any case before the defect liability period ends. The earlier an item appears on a list, the easier it is to get it put right.

Maintenance

Maintenance is everything after that. It splits two ways:

Planned — the things you do on a schedule so they do not fail: AC servicing, water heater descaling, sealant renewal, repainting.

Reactive — the things that happen: a leak, a tripping circuit, a door that stopped closing, a blockage.

A five-year-old flat with a worn tap needs maintenance. A brand-new flat with a tap that was never sealed properly needs snagging. Same tap, different conversation, different payer.

Why the distinction matters

It decides who pays. A genuine snag during the liability period is normally the developer’s or contractor’s to put right. Maintenance is normally the owner’s, and sometimes the tenant’s depending on the cause and the contract. Calling a snag “maintenance” means somebody pays for something that should have been free.

It decides the urgency. A defect liability period has an end date. A maintenance item does not — it just gets worse.

It decides what evidence you need. Snagging needs a dated, photographed list that can be sent to somebody and chased. Maintenance needs a quote and a record of what was done.

Where the line gets blurred

Some situations genuinely sit in between:

• A defect that caused wear. A badly installed AC drain that has been dripping for a year has caused real damage. The drain is a snag; the stained ceiling is arguably a consequence of it. Document both, together.
• Handover that happened a while ago. Once the liability period ends, a defect becomes your problem whatever its origin. The clock matters more than the cause.
• A second-hand property. If you bought a three-year-old flat, you are not snagging — though an inspection before you buy is still one of the better things you can spend money on.

Worth verifying for your own situation. Defect liability periods, what they cover and how long they run are set by the sale and purchase agreement and by the applicable UAE construction and property law. Check your own contract and the current rules rather than relying on a general article.

What a usable snag list looks like

A list that gets acted on has four things in every line, and a list that stalls is usually missing one of them:

• Where it is. The room, and the wall or fitting within it. “Bedroom 2, wardrobe, left-hand door” rather than “wardrobe issue”.
• What is wrong, described as a defect rather than an opinion. “Door does not latch; gap of roughly 4mm at the top” is actionable. “Door is bad” is not.
• A photograph, taken close enough to show the defect and wide enough to show where it is in the room.
• A trade. Knowing whether an item is joinery, paint or AC is what lets several items be closed in one visit rather than five.

If you are handed a report without photographs, send it back. A snag list without evidence is a list of assertions, and assertions are what gets disputed.

Which do you need?

Snagging if: you are taking handover, you moved in within the last year or two, you are still inside the defect liability period, or you have a list the developer has not acted on.

Maintenance if: the property is older, something that used to work has stopped, or nothing is wrong yet and you want to keep it that way.

Both, quite often. A new flat still needs its AC serviced.

One company for both is not a detail

The usual arrangement is that one company inspects and another repairs. That gap is where snag lists go to die: the inspector has no obligation to close anything, the contractor can dispute whether an item is a defect, and the owner is in the middle holding a PDF.

We do both, which is why our snagging page is about rectification as much as inspection — the list is written by the people who then have to close it.

For the maintenance side, AC servicing and painting and wall repairs are the two that come up most often immediately after a handover.

---

Not sure which you are looking at? Describe the property and what you are seeing and we will tell you honestly which it is — including when the answer is “that one is the developer’s, not yours”.