Defect Management & Handover Assurance · Sydney

The last 5% of the build
decides the whole project.

Group 4 is the independent specialist developers and head contractors engage to make close-out go right — inspected, documented and defensible, so practical completion lands clean and on time.

20+
Years on major projects
Lendlease
Tier-one delivery pedigree
Army
The discipline behind the standard
100%
Independent, no side to take but the outcome

The thirty-second
version.

Defect Management & Handover Assurance

The problem

Close-out is where projects
bleed time, money and trust.

It rarely fails in a dramatic way. It unravels quietly — the same four ways, on almost every project.

Defects surface late

Found at handover instead of before it — when every fix costs more and holds up settlement.

Registers scatter

The defect list lives in six spreadsheets nobody owns, so nothing is ever truly closed.

Trades dispute cost

With no record of who caused what, every rectification turns into an argument.

Risk outlives handover

Disputes open, settlement slips, and liability follows the building for years.

In NSW, a documented close-out is protection now.

Close-out carries regulatory weight — audits before the occupation certificate, and accountability that follows a building for years.

5%
of the project — the last five per cent, where good builds quietly become disputes.
6/2 yr
NSW statutory warranty windows (major / other) the close-out record must survive.
2%
of contract price locked in the strata building bond until defects are cleared — rising to 3% in 2028.
Works to the frameworks that govern NSW handover
  • National Construction Code
  • Australian Standards
  • DBP Act 2020
  • RAB Act 2020
  • Strata Schemes (NSW)
The service

One accountable regime,
from first inspection to sign-off.

01 / INSPECT

Structured inspection regime

Staged inspections across the works, planned and documented. Defects are found early, when they're cheap, not at the line when they're leverage.

02 / CONTROL

Cost-coded defect register

Every defect captured, priced, assigned and tracked to close-out. One register, one source of truth, cost-coded so commercial exposure is visible at all times.

03 / ASSURE

Reporting & assurance

Clear protocols and reporting the client can act on: close-out velocity, exposure by trade, readiness for PC — the independent evidence your team and certifier need to confirm the building is genuinely ready to hand over.

The Group 4 system

A methodology you can see,
not a promise you have to take.

Group 4 works in your project's platform — Procore, Aconex, PlanRadar or your own — or brings its own cost-coded register when you don't have one. Either way you get the same discipline: a live register and reporting most consultancies simply don't run. Explore it with sample project data.

Open the live demo →
Why Group 4

The safe pair of hands
when it has to work.

  • Independent. Group 4 works for the outcome, not the head contractor's programme or the subbies' excuses.
  • Rigorous. Twenty-plus years of tier-one delivery and army-grade discipline, applied to the least forgiving phase of a project.
  • Accountable. One regime, one register, one report. You always know where close-out stands, and what it will cost.