Paint, Plaster & Tile Finish Defects at VP
What Counts as a Defect & How to Record It (2026)

Defect or acceptable workmanship?

No new house is perfect, and no developer will repaint a whole wall because of one speck of dust in the paint. The useful question is not “is it perfect?” but “would a careful tradesman have accepted this?”. A finish that a careful painter, plasterer or tiler would have redone before leaving site is a workmanship defect, and workmanship defects are exactly what the DLP exists for. The defect liability period guide explains the 24-month window and how written notice works.

Finish defects matter more than they look. Hollow plaster and hollow tiles get worse with time; paint over damp fails from behind; a tile edge that stands proud chips and trips. They are also the items most often argued about, because “it looks fine to me” is easy to say about a finish. A clear standard, applied the same way in every room, takes that argument away.

Paint: patchiness, drips, splashes and colour mismatch

Most paint defects come from too few coats, painting over an unprepared surface, or rushing the last coat. Walk each room with the main light off and a torch held flat against the wall. Patchy areas, where the wall looks dull in one place and sheen in another, usually mean an uneven last coat. Runs and drips at the top of a wall or around a socket plate mean the paint was laid on too thick. Paint on switch plates, hinges, door handles, tiles and window frames is careless masking.

Colour mismatch shows up where touch-ups were done with a different batch or a different sheen: a square of slightly different colour on an otherwise even wall. List the wall, not just the patch, because a fresh touch-up over a touch-up usually makes it worse. The painting contractor guide explains what an even finish should look like and why preparation decides it.

One warning: paint that bubbles or peels in a band low on a wall, under a window or next to a bathroom is not a paint defect. It is a water defect showing through paint, and it belongs on the list as a possible leak. The handover water damage check sets out how to tell a leak from construction moisture drying out.

Plaster and skim coat: hollow areas and hairline vs real cracks

Tap the walls with a coin or the back of a key, working in a grid. Sound plaster gives a short, solid knock; hollow plaster sounds dull and drummy, and the edge of the hollow area is where the sound changes. Mark the outline lightly in pencil. Hollow plaster is a bond failure, not a cosmetic issue, and the hollow plaster guide explains why it tends to spread.

Cracks are where most arguments start. Fine hairline cracks at the joint between a brick wall and a concrete column, or at the corners of openings, are common as new materials dry out; list them, but expect a cosmetic repair. Diagonal cracks from door or window corners, cracks across beams or slabs, and any crack that keeps growing are different. ClickBina's guide to cracks in a new house says to call an engineer when a crack is wider than about 3 mm or visibly growing, and to mark both ends with a date so movement can be shown later.

Also look along walls with a torch held flat. Waves, bumps and trowel marks in the skim coat show up as shadows. A wall that is visibly not flat in raking light is a workmanship item, even if it has been painted.

Floor and wall tiles: hollow, lippage, chips and grout gaps

Tiles are the finish most worth checking carefully, because a hollow tile that is not on the list now becomes your cost later. Tap every floor tile in the middle and at each corner. ClickBina's popped and hollow tiles guide explains the tap test in detail: a solid knock means a full bed of mortar, a hollow ring means a void, and a cluster of hollow tiles points to a laying or water problem rather than bad luck.

Then look across the floor at a low angle with a torch on the floor. Lippage, where one tile edge stands higher than the next, catches the light and the feet. ClickBina's large-format tiling guide notes that a big tile turns a small ripple into visible lippage, and treats more than 2 mm between tiles as typically a defect.

In bathrooms, grout gaps and cracked tiles are also water paths, so list them as possible leak points, not just finishes.

Ceilings: board joints, stains and sag

Plasterboard ceilings show their workmanship at the joints. With a torch held close to the ceiling, look for visible joint lines, tape edges, screw heads that show through and cracks running along the joints. Look along the ceiling from a corner of the room for any board that dips. A sagging board, or a crack that follows a joint across the room, is a defect to list.

Any stain or ring on a ceiling is a water question first and a finish question second. Under a bathroom, balcony or roof, treat it as a possible leak and write down where it is. Painting over it hides the evidence the developer needs to see.

Doors, frames and skirting

Finishes around doors are easy to miss because the door itself works. Check that the frame is painted or sealed all round, including the top edge, that there are no gaps between frame and wall, that hinges and locks are free of paint, and that the door edge is not chipped. Skirting should be fixed tight to the wall, with neat joints at corners and no gaps under it. A gap opening under a skirting can also be a sign of movement; the cracks guide covers that.

Window frames and sills deserve the same look: sealant should be continuous, neat and not smeared over the glass, and paint should stop cleanly at the frame.

How to record finish defects: light angle and labels

A finish defect that cannot be shown later is a finish defect that gets argued about. The trick is the light. Finish defects are almost invisible in flat, overhead light and obvious in raking light, so hold a torch flat against the wall or floor and record the defect with the light coming across it, not from behind you.

• Label each item with a number and stick a small tape marker on the defect so the developer's team finds the same spot.
• Record one wide view showing where the defect is in the room, then one close view with the light raking across it.
• Put a coin or ruler beside cracks and lippage so the size can be read.
• Write the room, wall or floor area and what is wrong in plain words: “Master bedroom, wall behind door, hollow plaster about the size of a hand”.
• Keep the date on everything; the DLP clock runs from VP.

If you would rather not do this room by room on your own, tick your defects room by room with ClickBina's defect checklist and keep the list with your records.

What developers usually push back on

Expect some items to come back marked “acceptable” or “not a defect”. The ones most often disputed are hairline cracks, slight shade differences between tiles, faint paint marks and anything the developer thinks was caused after handover. Three habits make those arguments shorter.

1. Report everything in writing inside the DLP, including small items; the developer typically has 30 days to make good after written notice, according to ClickBina's HDA rights guide.
2. Do not renovate, retile or repaint over a reported finish defect before it is repaired: once you alter a finish, the developer can argue the defect was yours.
3. Re-check every repaired finish in raking light. Patch repairs to paint and plaster are where a second round of defects usually comes from.

If items are refused or repairs keep failing, the guide to developers who won't fix defects covers written notices and escalation, and ClickBina's HDA rights guide notes that the homebuyer tribunal hears claims of up to RM50,000.

After the DLP: what finish repairs cost

Inside the DLP, finish repairs are the developer's to do. After it, they are yours. These indicative Klang Valley figures (2026) from ClickBina's published guides give a sense of scale:

Painting after repairs, access for high walls and any work an engineer specifies are priced separately. That gap between “the developer's cost” and “your cost” is the reason to list finishes thoroughly while the DLP is running.

When to book an inspection

Book before you submit your first defect list, ideally before key collection paperwork is signed off, and again before the DLP ends if new finish defects have appeared. ClickBina's defect inspection service in KL & Selangor covers new condos and landed houses: we inspect every room, write the numbered defect list for you to submit to the developer, and can carry out the rectification ourselves for anything outside the developer's scope or left unrepaired after the DLP.

WhatsApp us your unit type, size and VP date for an inspection quote. We reply within the hour, quote a flat price with no hidden charges, and are registered with SSM. If you also want repairs priced, a site visit is RM150, waived if you proceed with the works.

Separately, where water is suspected behind a finish, ClickBina's leak detection is charged on its own at RM300 – RM800 per visit.

Sources & methodology

• ClickBina cracks in a new house guide — crack types, the 3 mm engineer threshold, skim coat prices, site visit fee.
• ClickBina popped and hollow tiles guide — the tap test, hollow tiles as workmanship defects, tiling prices.
• ClickBina large-format tiling guide — lippage and the 2 mm defect line.
• ClickBina handover water damage check — raking light, construction moisture, leak detection fee.
• ClickBina HDA homebuyer rights and defect liability period guides — the 24-month DLP, written notice, typical make-good time, tribunal limit.

Methodology: every RM figure is quoted unchanged from the ClickBina guide named beside it; they are indicative 2026 Klang Valley ranges, not fixed rates. The defect-or-acceptable lines are practical guidance, not a statutory standard; your SPA and the developer's own specification decide disputes. This page is general information, not legal advice.