HDB key collection day: 12 things to check before you sign off

Key collection day for an HDB flat is a once-in-a-decade moment, and the walk-through inspection you do that morning affects what happens for the next few months. Defects spotted and recorded on handover day get fixed under HDB's defects liability period. Things missed get expensive to deal with later.

This is the 12-point checklist worth running through, whether you're collecting a BTO or completing a resale purchase. It covers the inspection itself, the defects worth flagging, and the cleaning steps that make sense before furniture moves in.

Before you go: what to bring

A few things make the inspection actually useful:

• A torch (phone torch is fine) — for looking under sinks, behind toilets, into cabinets
• A small spirit level or a level app on your phone — for floors and counters
• Your phone camera, with plenty of storage for photos
• A notebook or notes app to log defects as you find them
• A power-bank-sized appliance you can plug in — to test every socket
• A water bottle to test toilet flushes and tap pressure

Allow at least 90 minutes for the walkthrough if it's a BTO; 60 minutes for a resale where you've already viewed the unit. Don't rush.

The 12-point checklist

1. Doors and door frames

Open and close every door including the main entrance, all bedroom doors, bathroom doors, and the kitchen door if there is one. They should swing smoothly, latch fully, and not scrape the floor. The main door should lock and unlock cleanly with all provided keys.

Flag: doors that stick, hinges that squeak heavily, locks that catch, gaps between door and frame larger than a few millimetres.

2. Windows and sliding doors

Open every window and slide every track. They should glide smoothly without jumping. Check the locks engage. Look for cracked or scratched glass, and gaps in the rubber weather stripping around the frames. For sliding doors (balcony or kitchen yard), check the track is clean and the rollers run smoothly.

Flag: stiff sliding, missing or torn weather stripping, scratched or chipped glass, gaps where light comes through.

3. Walls and ceilings

Walk through every room and look up at the ceiling and around the walls. You're looking for hairline cracks, water stains, uneven paint, exposed wiring, or missing patches. Look especially at corners where walls meet ceilings — that's where settlement cracks tend to appear.

Flag: any visible cracks (even small ones — they can spread), water staining, paint that looks uneven or peeling.

4. Floor tiles or surface

Walk every room slowly. Listen for hollow sounds when you step — that means a tile is loose. Look for cracks, chips, and uneven tile alignment. Use your spirit level on the floor at a few points to check for major slopes (small slopes in bathrooms are intentional for drainage; bedroom floors should be flat).

Flag: hollow-sounding tiles, cracks, chips, visible level differences between adjacent tiles, gaps in grout.

5. Bathroom drainage and seals

Run water in the basin, then the shower. Watch how it drains. Slow drainage on day one means a problem. Pour water on the bathroom floor away from the drain and watch it flow — it should travel to the floor trap, not pool elsewhere.

Check sealant lines around the bath or shower, around the basin, and where wall tiles meet the bathtub. Fresh sealant should be smooth and complete with no gaps.

Flag: slow drainage, pooling water on the floor, gaps in sealant, mould already visible in any corners.

6. Kitchen sink and tap

Run the kitchen tap hot and cold. Pressure should be steady. Watch under the sink while it's running — no leaks at the connection joints, no slow drips. Fill the sink halfway, then let it drain — should drain steadily without backing up.

Flag: weak water pressure, leaks under the sink, slow drainage, tap fittings that wobble.

7. Every electrical socket and switch

This is the slow one. Plug your test appliance into every socket in the flat — yes, all of them — and flick every switch. Every socket should power your test device; every switch should control its labelled light or fan.

While you're at the DB box, check that every breaker is labelled correctly. If your kitchen circuit is labelled "living" or vice versa, get it relabelled now while the contractor is still around. It saves you confusion later when you need to switch one off — and if you ever notice a circuit that won't hold, an electrician can trace the tripping cause before it becomes a recurring headache.

Flag: any socket that doesn't power your device, any switch that controls the wrong thing, missing or wrong DB box labels.

8. Plumbing — toilets and water heater

Flush every toilet. Watch the fill cycle complete — it should refill quickly and the running stop completely. Listen for hissing or trickling sounds 30 seconds after the flush; that means a slow leak in the cistern.

Turn on the hot water at the bathroom basin and let it run. Water should turn hot within 15-30 seconds for an instant heater, longer for a storage heater that hasn't been used. If you have a storage water heater, give it 20 minutes to heat up before testing.

Flag: a toilet that keeps running, no hot water, water that stays lukewarm even after running for a minute.

9. Aircon points and trunking

Even if your aircon units aren't installed yet, check the aircon points. Trunking should be in the right rooms, in sensible positions (not blocking a window or above where you'll want to mount a fan). Each aircon point should have a clean wall opening with the copper piping cap visible. The condensate drain should be visible exiting to outside.

For BTO units the aircon installation usually happens after handover, but if the points are in awkward positions, now is the time to know.

Flag: aircon points missing entirely, points positioned somewhere you can't mount a unit, drain pipes exiting into your own balcony rather than outside.

10. Storeroom and HDB items received

Check the storeroom or yard area. The contractor should have left it clean and clear, not used as a debris dump. Walk around it, open any built-in panels (HDB shelter unit, electrical inspection panels) and look inside.

From HDB or the previous owner, you should receive: keys (main door, storeroom, mailbox, gate if applicable), the floor plan, operation manuals for any fitted appliances, and the warranty cards for major fittings.

Flag: missing keys, missing documentation, storeroom in unfinished condition.

11. Small but easy-to-miss finishes

These are the things that look small but stand out once you've moved in:

• Skirting board joints — should be clean, no gaps or paint blobs
• Switch and socket plates — should sit flush against the wall, no cracked plates
• Window grille if installed — should be securely fixed, no sharp edges
• Hose bibs and balcony drains — should drain freely
• Service yard washer point — water connection and drain both present

12. Take photos of everything

Even things that look fine — take a photo. Date-stamped photos of the unit on handover day are evidence of its condition when you accepted it. Useful for the defects liability period, and useful when you eventually sell.

Particular things worth photographing: every room from multiple angles, the kitchen and bathrooms in detail, the DB box panel, the meter readings (water and electricity), and the condition of any fixed items that the contract specified.

What to do with the defects list

BTO flats come with a one-year defects liability period. Defects spotted on handover or in the months after should be reported to HDB's Defects Inspection team via the My HDB online portal or the BSC (Building Service Centre) for your block. Photos help — and HDB normally sends a team to verify and arrange repair at no cost to you.

Resale flats are different. Whatever you noticed during viewings was implicitly accepted; anything you missed becomes your problem after completion. This is why the pre-completion inspection (different from key collection) matters significantly — and if renovation follows, it pays to map it against a realistic resale renovation timeline before you commit move-in dates.

Move-in cleaning — before furniture arrives

Whether or not the previous owner or contractor "cleaned" the unit, most homes need a proper move-in cleaning before you unpack. The reason: a builder's clean or a casual seller's clean rarely covers the things that actually matter for living — inside cabinets, the fridge interior, the aircon filter, the corners of the bathroom.

Move-in cleaning in Singapore typically costs:

What that covers: sanitise and wipe inside all cabinets, fridge deep clean including seals and drip tray, bathroom disinfect with mould treatment, AC filter wash, ceiling fan blade clean, window sills and tracks, full floor mop with sanitiser.

Best done with the unit empty. Once furniture is in, the same move-in cleaning job takes 30-50% longer and we can't access certain spaces properly.

If you're combining with renovation

If you've just done a BTO or resale renovation, the post-renovation cleaning is a different scope from move-in cleaning. Post-reno cleaning deals with construction dust, primer residue, paint splashes, and grout haze; move-in cleaning sanitises for occupation. The two can be combined ($450-$650 for a full post-reno + sanitise pass), which is usually cheaper than doing them separately, and our post-renovation cleaning checklist walks through exactly what that pass should cover.

The short version

On key collection day:

1. Doors, frames, locks — all working smoothly
2. Windows and sliding doors — gliding without jumping
3. Walls and ceilings — no cracks, no stains
4. Floor tiles — no hollows, no level issues
5. Bathroom drainage and sealant — flowing properly, no gaps
6. Kitchen sink and tap — full pressure, no leaks
7. Every socket and switch — test them all
8. Toilets and water heater — flushing and heating correctly
9. Aircon points — in the right places
10. Storeroom and documentation — clean and complete
11. Small finishes — skirting, plates, grilles
12. Photos of everything for the record

Then, before you move furniture in: schedule a move-in cleaning. It's the easiest way to start a new home and the one chance you have to clean every corner properly.