Guide
What actually goes in a New Zealand handover pack
Most of the arguments a builder has after a job finishes come down to one thing: nobody can find the piece of paper. Here is what belongs in the pack, and the four things almost everyone leaves out.
A handover pack is not a formality. It is the document that decides whether the next eighteen months are quiet or whether your phone goes every second Saturday about a mark on a benchtop.
There is no single legal template for one. Your contract will set some of it, the council sets some of it, and the rest is what a reasonable builder hands over. What follows is the list that covers all three.
The compliance half
This is the part the owner's lawyer, bank or insurer will ask for, usually at the worst possible moment.
- The building consent and the approved plans and specifications.
- The Code Compliance Certificate. If it hasn't come through yet, say so in writing and say where it is up to — don't leave a gap and hope.
- Records of inspections carried out during the build.
- Producer statements and design certificates from engineers and specialist trades.
- As-built drawings where anything changed from consent — especially drainage and services runs.
- Any minor variations recorded against the consent, and any amendments.
- Compliance schedule and specified systems documentation, if the building has any.
The trade half
This is the part that saves you the phone calls.
- Spec sheet. Every finish, by room: paint brand, colour and finish; flooring; tapware; benchtops; roofing colour; joinery colour. With supplier and product code, not just "off-white".
- Product warranties for roofing, cladding, joinery, membranes, appliances — and, crucially, whether each one needs registering and by whom.
- Your own guarantee and any Master Builders or Certified Builders guarantee, with the certificate number.
- Appliance manuals and model numbers.
- Subcontractor list — who did the electrical, plumbing, roofing, and how to reach them.
- Keys, alarm codes, meter locations, water shutoff, switchboard photo.
- Site photos — particularly of services before they were covered. Worth more than anything else in the pack the day someone wants to hang a shelf or dig a post hole.
The four things most packs leave out
1. A maintenance schedule
This is the big one. A list, area by area, of what the owner has to do and how often: wash the cladding, clear the gutters, check the seals, service the ventilation, re-oil the deck.
It matters for two reasons. It is genuinely useful to the owner. And when someone comes back in year three claiming a cladding failure, the maintenance schedule you handed them — and the fact they signed for it — is the first question anyone will ask about.
Many product warranties are conditional on maintenance being carried out. If the owner never washes the cladding, the manufacturer may decline the claim, and that conversation lands on you. One sentence at the top of the maintenance page prevents a great deal of grief later.
2. What the defects period actually is
Owners routinely think "12 month guarantee" means everything is free for a year, including the door they kicked and the silicone they never cleaned. Spell out what the period covers, what counts as a defect, what counts as maintenance, and how to report one. There's more on this here.
3. Who to ring, for what
One page. Emergency (burst pipe, no power), warranty claim, general question. With the name of the actual person. If you don't provide it, every one of those calls comes to you anyway, at 7pm.
4. A signed record that they got it
Date, what was handed over, who received it. This is thirty seconds of work that turns a later "I was never given that" into a non-conversation.
Digital, printed, or both
Both. Print one for the kitchen drawer — that is where people actually look. Send a digital copy too, because in three years the printed one will have gone with the previous owner and the buyer will ring you.
If you can give the owner a page they can open on their phone rather than a 60MB email attachment, do it. The attachment gets deleted; the link doesn't.
Start the pack at consent, not at practical completion
The reason handover packs take a whole weekend is that they get assembled at the end, from memory, out of a folder of photos and a pile of paper in the ute.
Nearly everything in the list above exists before the job finishes. The producer statement arrives when the engineer signs it. The paint colour is known the day it is chosen. The roofing warranty comes with the roof.
File each one against the job the day it exists and the pack builds itself. Leave it to the end and you are doing archaeology.
If you have a job settling in December, start the pack now. Suppliers shut down, engineers go on leave, and councils get slow. The producer statement you can get in ten minutes in October is a fortnight's chase in January.
The pack, built as you go
Silicon Hub assembles the handover pack from what is already on the job — spec sheet, product care, warranties, the maintenance schedule, the documents index and the photos — into one PDF, and gives the buyer their own page. It is one button instead of a weekend.
See how it worksMore guides
- Progress claims explainedAnd the three mistakes that delay payment.
- Defects liability periodsWhat you actually owe after handover.
- Practical completion to CCCThe five things that go wrong in between.
General information for New Zealand residential builders, not legal advice. Your contract, your lawyer and the relevant legislation beat a blog post every time.