I've been reading through the handover discussions on whether to accept the keys and make the final payment when there are still faults outstanding or refuse to accept handover until the faults are fixed.
The general consensus seems to be you should wait until everything is completed/fixed before making the payment. And when we recently had our pre-plaster inspection with Kevin, he advised us to do the same thing because once the builders have the cash, there’s no real sense of urgency to fix the faults etc.
However, he also said a common problem is people are often renting and the vacation date they set usually coincides with handover. Therefore, they find themselves under pressure to accept the keys with faults outstanding because they may not have anywhere to live.
We're renting and our plan is to do the sensible thing and wait but given we're required by law to give at least 4 weeks notice before vacating the rental, it's going to be quite tricky in terms of timing.
If we follow this advice and only give notice once everything is fixed , it seems unavoidable that we will have to pay rent even though the house may be ready to move into.
So my question is, even though it’s sensible to wait, how many people actually do?