When to schedule a home inspection for a new apartment

A home inspection (bedek bayit) for a new apartment from a contractor is essential for peace of mind, and it is best done before you receive the keys. This page covers the right time to schedule it, why it matters, and what you should not miss.

The initial walkthrough: the best time to start

When you buy a new apartment from a contractor and put a great deal of money into it, it is hard to picture the place as a product with defects. Construction flaws do not feel like they belong in something as new and shiny as a new apartment.

But over time most buyers realize there is no point burying their head in the sand: skip the inspection and you may not know the defects are there, but they will be. So when is the right time to check, and what does a proper inspection cover, including the kind of items on our flooring inspection checklist?

Some contractors let a building inspection engineer see the apartment as early as the initial walkthrough, usually about two weeks before handover, when the contractor invites the resident to come and point out what is wrong.

This is the proper process that self-respecting contractors follow, and it is an excellent time for a home inspection engineer to get involved: the engineer inspects the apartment and submits a report, the contractor makes the repairs, and the resident returns to confirm everything has been fixed. This is the best-case timing for a home inspection.

Handover: the next best opportunity

Construction defects are also commonly caught at handover, when the contractor gives the resident the key. At this stage the resident still has leverage, and the contractor wants to hand over the apartment quickly and get any defects fixed.

The resident can sign the handover protocol with a reservation stating that acceptance is conditional on the repairs the home inspection engineer identifies. Some contractors do not let the resident bring in an inspector at all, so it is worth adding a clause to the purchase contract that guarantees the right to bring one in at the initial walkthrough or at handover.

Why contractors resist, and whether it's too late after you move in

It pays for a contractor to keep inspectors out, since doing so blocks roughly half of the professional checks a home inspection would otherwise catch. In practice, once a contractor prevents residents from inspecting at this stage, their motivation to pursue it afterward tends to drop: people move in, settle, and no longer want to deal with problems. So can a home inspection still be done after the keys have changed hands?

Yes, though it is less advisable. Home inspection lawsuits show that some buyers assume there is no need to inspect a new apartment because too little time has passed for anything to break. But that misses the point: the inspection needs to happen during the warranty period, close to when you receive the keys, because it produces a report the courts will accept, letting you enforce your rights.

Keep in mind that the contractor has already built the cost of post-handover repairs into the apartment's price, so it pays to have an inspection that catches every defect, and there can easily be hundreds. The law is on the resident's side: the contractor must fix everything the report finds.

If you don't ask for it, you won't get it.