Buying and controlling remotely
What the photos your developer sends do not show
They show the parts of the building that photograph well at that stage. What is missing is consistent: services before they are covered, waterproofing details, the corners where work has stopped, and every area nobody thought worth sending a photograph of that month.
Developer photographs tend to show whatever part of the building photographs well at that point, and the gaps are consistent: services before walls close over them, waterproofing at joints and terraces, corners where work has stalled, and any area nobody thought worth a picture that month. What is missing is more informative than what is shown.
What is systematically absent
- Services in open walls and slabs, the one thing that cannot be checked later.
- Waterproofing at terraces, balconies and roof junctions, where the expensive failures start.
- Areas where nothing has changed since the last set.
- Anything under water, behind a stack of materials, or above a ceiling.
- The wider site, which is where a fall in activity shows first.
Why comparison is impossible
Photographs sent as updates are taken from wherever the person was standing. The angle changes, the light changes, the crop changes. Two sets six weeks apart may show the same room and be uncomparable.
What to ask for, if photographs are all you have
- Wide shots of each elevation, not only close-ups of finished corners.
- Photographs of open services before any wall is closed, dated.
- The date and time of capture, and who took them.
- The areas not photographed this month, and why.
The absence that matters most
Nobody sends a photograph of a room where nothing happened. It is not deception, it is the nature of an update: you send what there is to show. But the room where nothing happened for four months is precisely the information you needed.
Developer photographs are honest as far as they go and selective by nature, showing what photographs well rather than what a stage definition requires. Asking for wide shots, dated captures of open services, and a note of what was not photographed closes most of that gap.
Last checked
Questions on this
- Can photographs prove a stage is incomplete?
- They can support it. What makes the argument is the contractual definition of the stage next to a dated record of what was and was not built, including what could not be seen.
- Should I ask for video instead?
- Video has the same selection problem and is harder to check. What was not filmed is invisible in exactly the way what was not photographed is.
- What about photographs from other buyers?
- Useful and unreliable in the same way as any crowd-sourced record: undated, inconsistent, and biased towards whatever alarmed somebody enough to post it.