What a buyer actually gets on handover day

On 7 August a buyer took the keys to her finished villa at Magic Story. It is on video because handovers should be, and because in this category the moment is almost never shown.

Sales renders are everywhere. Photographs of an actual person receiving actual keys to an actual finished building are rare enough to be worth asking about.

What is in the folder

Keys are the easy part. The folder is the part that matters at year five, when something fails and you need to know who built it and what with.

• Handover protocol, signed by both sides, listing the condition of every room and every defect found on the day
• Certificate of fitness (SLF) for the building, with number and issuer
• Building permit (PBG), with number and issuer
• Lease deed or title documents, as executed, with the notary named
• As-built drawings, including where the services actually run rather than where they were drawn
• Equipment manuals and warranties: pool plant, pumps, air conditioning, water heaters, with serial numbers
• Defect liability terms: what is covered, for how long, and who to call
• Rental licence and operating entity, if the villa goes into management
• Utility accounts and how they transfer

The walk

Before anything is signed, the buyer walks the villa with the site team and writes down everything they do not like. Every item goes on the protocol, including the trivial ones. Nothing is settled verbally.

Items found on the day are closed within the defect period and the log stays open to the buyer for the whole term. We publish the log per project, including items that took longer than they should have.

What confirms it

The signed protocol and the certificate exist as documents with numbers and dates, which is the strongest form of confirmation available here. The video is evidence that the day happened; the folder is evidence of what was handed over.

If you are buying from anyone in this market, ask to see a completed handover protocol from a previous project, with the defect list intact. A developer with nothing to hide will have one. A developer who has never handed anything over will not.