52 defects in one Damac Lagoons handover

In May 2026 we inspected a four-bedroom townhouse in Damac Lagoons on behalf of the buyer, before handover documents were signed. The inspection took most of a day. The report was with the owner that evening.

It contained 52 defects. Twenty-four were graded high priority, twenty-five medium, three low. Below is what that actually looked like, because a number on its own tells you very little.

Where the defects were

Defects were spread across every part of the property rather than concentrated in one bad room, which is typical of a unit finished under schedule pressure.

• Second bedroom — 9 items
• Kitchen — 7 items
• Main entrance — 6 items
• Master bedroom — 6 items
• Bathroom and master bathroom — 4 items each
• First bedroom — 4 items
• Balcony — 3 items
• Patio and outdoor parking — 2 items each
• Dining and living — 2 items
• Staircase, terrace and laundry — 1 item each

The four items that had to be fixed before signing

Most of the 52 were finish-quality issues. Four were not, and these are the ones that change whether you should accept handover.

Low water pressure throughout the entire unit

Not one tap — every water outlet in the property. That is an MEP issue rather than a fitting problem, which means it sits behind the walls and becomes expensive and disruptive to resolve once you have moved in and signed for the unit.

A humming, vibrating noise above the master bathroom

Nothing visible, which is precisely why it matters. A sound coming from a ceiling void points to mechanical plant or pipework that is not installed or supported correctly. There was no photograph to take. It went in the report anyway, and it is the sort of item a walkthrough never catches.

Multiple hollow floor tiles on the balcony

Hollow tiling sounds fine underfoot and looks perfect. It means the tile is not fully bedded, and on an external balcony exposed to Dubai heat cycling it cracks — usually within the first year, and usually after the developer's liability has become an argument rather than an obligation.

A non-functional outdoor power socket

Small in itself. Significant as a signal: an outlet that was installed, signed off and never tested. It raises the question of what else on that circuit was never energised.

The high-priority items behind those

Below the urgent four sat a set of items that were not emergencies but were not acceptable in a newly handed-over property either.

• Cooker hood and extractor fan performing well below expected flow rate
• Widespread colour variation in the wood flooring across bedrooms and hallway
• Entrance door peephole and handle loose
• Scuffs and chips on the main entrance door and frame
• Sliding patio door handle loose enough to affect closure
• Poor finishing at the wall-to-skirting junction in several rooms
• Gaps in sealant between tiles at the entrance and on the patio

And the ones that were only cosmetic

Paint, grout and sealant inconsistencies appeared in every room. Ceiling panels were misaligned in the bathroom and second bedroom. A wardrobe cabinet moved when used. The kitchen drain had an uneven gap and visible colour variation. A gas detector sat crooked.

None of these would stop you accepting the property. All of them are the developer's responsibility to correct, and none of them get corrected if nobody writes them down.

Why the grading matters more than the total

A list of 52 items with no priority attached invites a developer to work through it from the top and lose interest. Grading each defect by severity means the water pressure fault gets addressed first and the crooked gas detector last, which is the correct order for everyone involved.

Each item in the report carries a photograph, a location reference precise enough for a contractor to find it without a site meeting, and a grade. That is what makes a report actionable rather than merely thorough.

What the owner did next

The report went to the developer with rectification deadlines attached — nine days for most items, twenty for the larger ones. When the work was reported complete, we returned to verify it. That second visit is included in the inspection fee rather than charged again, because a defect list nobody checks against is not much use.

If your handover is coming up, see our Damac Lagoons snagging page for what we check in the community, or read how new handover snagging works more generally. If you moved in during the last twelve months, a defect liability period inspection is the better fit.