What an architect actually hands over at completion

Projects do not end so much as go quiet. The building is occupied, the invoices are mostly paid, and the last ten per cent of the work trails for six months because nobody ever wrote down what finishing looks like. Here is the list.

To the client

• —The as-built drawing set, at final revision, issued under a transmittal like any other set
• —The specification as built, including approved substitutions — not the tender specification
• —Operation and maintenance documentation from the contractor, checked rather than merely forwarded
• —Warranties and guarantees, with their start dates and durations stated
• —Statutory approvals and completion certificates
• —The snag list at close-out, showing what was raised, what was closed, and by whom
• —Any outstanding items, in writing, with who owes them

The snag list is a closing document, not a nuisance

A snag list that lives in someone's notebook follows the project around for a year. A snag list attached to the handover, with each item raised, assigned, dated and closed, ends it. The snag list, done properly covers the mechanics.

What the practice keeps for itself

The client's set is the obvious half. The practice's own close-out is the half that compounds — and the one nobody does, because by completion everyone has moved to the next job.

• —The final fee position: billed, collected, and written off
• —Cost against fee, so the project joins the evidence you price the next one from
• —The variations claimed and the variations absorbed
• —Photographs, at a quality you would put in a proposal
• —One page on what went wrong and what you would price differently

That last page is worth more than the rest combined and takes twenty minutes. Practices that write it stop repeating the same under-priced project type; practices that do not are surprised by it every three years.

Close the fee, not just the file

The most common unfinished item at handover is not a drawing — it is the final invoice, unraised because the trigger was "completion" and nobody defined completion. Define it in the appointment: practical completion, or the defects certificate, and say which. The RIBA Plan of Work treats handover as a stage in its own right.