Builder warranty terms and deadlines vary. Scheduling around month 10 gives you time to receive your report and submit your list to the builder before your applicable warranty deadline.
Warranty inspections
Report delivery
Termite + thermal
7am – 7pm
Builder warranties are not standardized. Coverage length, what is covered, the deadline for submitting items and the process for submitting them all vary by builder, and sometimes by the specific contract you signed. Check your own warranty documents for your actual deadline and submission process, then work backward from that date.
The reason to work backward is that the steps after your inspection take time. You need the report, you need to read it and decide what to submit, the builder needs to receive and review your list, and then trades have to be scheduled. Each of those steps takes days, sometimes longer during busy stretches.
Where the deadline falls near the end of the first year — which is common, and the reason these are usually called 11-month inspections — booking around month 10 leaves room for all of it. Waiting until month 11 and a half often means submitting a list right at the deadline, or missing it entirely. If your warranty runs on a different schedule, apply the same logic to your own date and book roughly two months ahead of it.
This is a full home inspection, not a shortened warranty checklist. The home is a year old, so it gets the same attention a resale home would.
By month 10 or 11 the house has been through a full Phoenix summer and at least one monsoon season. Materials have expanded, contracted and settled, and the things that were going to move have usually moved. These are the areas that commonly deserve attention at this stage — not a prediction of what will be found in any particular home:
Submit your list in writing, before your deadline, using whatever process your own warranty documents specify. Keep a copy of the report — the photographs and written descriptions serve as documentation of what the condition looked like on the date of the inspection.
The report documents observed conditions. It does not determine what your builder is obligated to repair. Coverage decisions belong to your builder and warranty administrator under the terms of your specific warranty. What the report gives you is a clear, documented, third-party description of the conditions so the conversation starts from evidence rather than memory.
Warranty inspections are priced from the standard square-footage schedule, starting at $300, with a $50 discount applied for one-year builder warranty inspections. You can see the full rate table on the home inspection pricing page.
Roughly two months before your warranty deadline — which, for the common one-year builder warranty, means around month 10. That leaves time to receive the report, decide what to submit, and get your list to the builder before the deadline. Confirm your own date in your warranty documents first, since terms vary.
No. The closing walkthrough is usually a short visual pass focused on finish and cosmetic items. This is a full inspection of the home's systems and components by a certified inspector who is working for you.
An inspection is still worth doing to understand the condition of the home, but your window for submitting items may have closed. Some builders offer coverage on certain components beyond the first year, so check your warranty documents for your actual terms before assuming you have missed it.
Look at the new construction inspection page, which covers final walkthrough timing before you close.
Open 7 days a week, 7am to 7pm. Same-day digital reports, with a $50 warranty inspection discount.