Buying a new-build Dutch home: contract to handover

With new-build you decide on a home before you can walk through it. The technical specification, the drawings and the purchase and construction agreement show what you are getting.

Budget for the construction period as well. Extras, interest and your current housing costs fall at different moments than with an existing home.

Read the technical specification

Go through the technical specification with the drawings beside it. Look up how the walls, the sanitary ware, the tiling and the kitchen will be delivered, and which connection points, heating and ventilation you get. Take the garden, the storage and the parking space along as well.

An artist’s impression can show extras that are not in the contract. Put anything missing into your budget as a cost of your own.

Check what the contract says

Look up in your agreement who is responsible for what, and what it says about the build time, the payment instalments, the conditions and the warranty. Where the build time is given in working days, ask how those are counted and what the contract says about delay.

An expected date from the sales conversation is not the same as a contractual handover date.

Budget for the whole construction period

Include the land, the construction instalments, the interest during construction, your current housing costs and any temporary storage. The loan can be drawn from a construction deposit. Ask which interest and conditions apply to it.

Put the payment moments next to your budget. That shows you when you need your own money, alongside the amounts that run through the construction deposit.

Sort the extras by moment

Make three groups: technically necessary before handover, sensible now because later is difficult, and perfectly possible later.

Pipework and connection points are often early choices. Decoration and loose furnishing can usually wait. Ask for a priced list of extras and confirm changes in writing.

Note the closing dates for the kitchen, the sanitary ware, the tiling and the electrics. Check which work falls under the construction warranty and which is carried out by an outside party.

Keep one file during construction

Keep the contracts, the drawings, the changes, the invoices and the photographs together. For any discussion, get out the latest agreed version of the drawing. That way you are discussing the layout including the changes you passed on earlier.

Prepare for the handover

At the handover, go through the house, the installations and the extras with your documents to hand. Note every defect on the handover record, the written report of the handover, and take photographs.

For around €350 an independent inspector walks round with you. Discuss beforehand whether you want that and what they check during the handover.

With a construction agreement entered into on or after 1 January 2024, the contractor also remains liable for defects not discovered at handover, unless they are not attributable to them. Under those agreements a forgotten point therefore does not mean you lose your rights.

The money that can be held back at handover as security has its own arrangement. For that, read the 5% deposit and check the conditions that go with your contract date.

What to do now

• read the technical specification and the drawings next to the impression, and budget for anything you want that is not included
• put the closing dates for extras in your diary separately
• cost out the whole construction period, not just the purchase price
• make your list of extras early, in three categories