DFW Builders Are Now Dictating Final Inspection Dates — And It’s a Problem

Across the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, a growing number of builders have begun dictating the exact date and time when a buyer’s independent final inspection “may” occur, often limiting the window to a single option with no exceptions. These notices read less like coordination and more like commands: one day, one time, take it or leave it. It is an unmistakable attempt to limit oversight of defective work by making third-party inspections as inconvenient and impossible as possible. This is not scheduling. It is interference. And interference carries consequences.

Texas law provides no authority whatsoever for builders to control when a buyer’s independent inspector may access the property. The Texas Property Code doesn’t permit it. No adopted version of the IRC, IECC, or NEC allows it. A builder can control their subcontractors and construction sequencing, but they have no contractual, statutory, or regulatory power to dictate the calendar of a licensed professional hired by the buyer. The inspector is not their vendor. The inspector represents the future homeowner, and the builder’s attempt to commandeer that relationship is an overreach designed to suppress documentation of defects.

Builders are not restricting inspection windows for convenience. They do it because they know what a proper new-construction inspection reveals. Structural deficiencies get exposed. Improper flashing becomes impossible to deny. HVAC systems that violate both code and manufacturer requirements get caught. Electrical defects explode off the page in every attic in North Texas. Unsafe stair geometry, missing insulation, voids in fireblocking, roof installation errors, and misaligned load paths all rise to the surface the moment a qualified inspector is allowed inside the house for more than ten minutes. By forcing inspections into a tiny window, builders are controlling the evidence trail, not the schedule.

For attorneys, this behavior should be a glaring warning. When a builder chooses a single day and a single narrow time frame and refuses all reasonable alternatives, the behavior begins to look less like coordination and much more like intentional interference with the buyer’s right to evaluate the product before accepting it. Courts have long viewed restrictive access, refusals to cooperate, or deliberate limitations on documentation as forms of bad-faith obstruction. When litigation arises, builders who impose such conditions unintentionally hand the homeowner’s attorney an argument for spoliation, a pattern of concealment, and evidence of systematic bad faith. What the builder calls “policy,” a jury is far more likely to recognize as manipulation.

The consequences outside the courtroom are equally severe. When independent inspectors cannot attend because a builder intentionally narrows the window, serious defects go undiscovered. Buyers close on unsafe or non-compliant homes. Warranty claims proliferate. Repairs multiply in cost. And when the situation finally collapses, it is attorneys—months or years later—who must unravel the damage that could have been identified and prevented had the builder simply allowed a legitimate inspection to occur at a reasonable time.

The rule is simple: the buyer hires the inspector, and the inspector sets the availability. The builder must provide reasonable access. There is no scenario under Texas law where a builder has the right to dictate, condition, or commandeer the professional schedule of an independent inspector. Attempts to do so constitute interference, plain and simple, and signal a builder who is more interested in avoiding accountability than ensuring the home is built correctly.

This scheduling tactic is more than an inconvenience. It is often the earliest indicator of a builder’s intent to limit transparency and control the evidentiary record. Patterns matter in litigation, and any builder willing to suppress inspection access is typically willing to cut corners elsewhere. Attorneys representing homeowners should pay close attention to these early acts of obstruction; they frequently foreshadow the larger disputes to come.

Builders can arrange their own walkthroughs, orientations, and closings whenever they wish. What they cannot do is dictate the time, day, or conditions under which the homeowner’s independent inspection takes place. Restricting access is not industry practice, not a contractual right, not a courtesy scheduling policy, and not harmless. It is a deliberate maneuver designed to suppress defects and limit liability. It deserves to be treated—and litigated—as exactly that.