Somewhere around month eleven in a new home, a quiet deadline arrives. The builder's one-year workmanship warranty is about to expire, and most homeowners never notice it happening.
By then the house has been through a full cycle of Tennessee weather. Framing lumber has dried, joints have moved, and defects that were invisible at closing have finally surfaced.
This is a guide to that eleventh month. It covers what to inspect, what a builder will usually repair at no cost, and where the line tends to fall.
Tennessee has no New Home Warranty Act. A bill to create one was filed in 2006 and never became law, so a builder warranty in this state is a contract rather than a statutory entitlement.
That is precisely why almost every new home here comes with one. Under the Residential Property Condition Disclosure Act, a builder who provides a written warranty on a first sale is exempt from completing the standard seller disclosure form.
Most builder warranties follow the same industry pattern. One year on workmanship and materials, two years on plumbing, electrical and HVAC distribution, and ten years on major structural defects.
Read yours instead of assuming. Tennessee courts generally enforce express warranty terms as written, including the written notice requirements and repair procedures buried in the fine print.
One deadline sits outside the warranty entirely. Tennessee sets a four-year statute of repose for construction defect claims, measured from substantial completion rather than from the day you discover the problem.
The eleven-month walkthrough is a convention, not a rule. The point is to inspect while three or four weeks of coverage still remain.
That buffer is the whole idea. You need time to submit a written claim, let the builder schedule a visit, and have the repair actually completed before coverage lapses.
Wait until month twelve and the defects are identical, but the invoice is now yours.
Walk each room in daylight with the overhead lights off, then again at night with them on. Raking light across a wall exposes flaws that flat light hides completely.
Cracks along drywall seams and popped fasteners are the most common finding in a first-year home, and they are almost always warrantable. Gaps where baseboard and casing meet belong on the same list.
Open and close every door in the house, including closets and the door to the garage. A door that drags, will not latch, or swings open on its own is reporting a real alignment problem.
Doors that stick, rub or refuse to latch get written off as settling more often than they should. Some genuinely are, but misaligned strike plates and out-of-square jambs are installation defects and belong on the claim.
Caulk and grout lines at tub and shower joints are the most commonly denied item on the list, because many builders classify them as homeowner maintenance. Photograph them and submit them anyway.
Workmanship and material defects are the core of a first-year warranty. Alignment problems, fastener pops, seam cracks, plumbing drips and hardware failures generally fall inside it.
Denials cluster in three areas. Anything reclassified as normal settling, anything called routine homeowner maintenance, and anything the builder argues followed from your own upkeep choices.
Grading and drainage sit right on that boundary. Many warranties condition coverage on the homeowner maintaining gutters, grading and exterior sealants, which is exactly why documenting the original condition matters.
Submit everything in writing, with dated photographs, and keep a copy. A verbal mention to a site superintendent is not a warranty claim.
Middle Tennessee has been building at volume for years. Census permit data shows more than 10,000 new private housing units authorized in Williamson County between 2021 and 2025.
A very large number of local homes are therefore moving through their first year at any given moment, each with a warranty clock running quietly in the background.
Licensing rules also change across the county line, which surprises people. Tennessee requires a state contractor license for any project of $25,000 or more, and a separate Home Improvement license for residential work from $3,000 to $24,999.
That second license only applies in the nine counties that adopted the law. Davidson County is one of them. Williamson County is not.
Most eleventh-month punch list work sits well below both thresholds. It is still worth knowing which rules apply where you live before you hire anyone.
The walkthrough produces two lists. One goes to the builder as a warranty claim, and one is everything you would rather simply have fixed properly and be done with.
Plenty of items land on the second list. Denied cosmetic repairs, work the builder botched twice, and small jobs you would rather not chase a production builder about for six weeks.
It helps to have a second set of eyes on the punch list before you submit it, and to know which small repairs get worse the longer they wait. For anything past simple patching, it is worth recognizing when a job has moved beyond DIY territory.
Harper's Handyman Services handles exactly that second list for homeowners across Franklin, Brentwood, Fairview, Spring Hill, Nolensville, Bellevue and West Nashville, from drywall and door adjustments through trim, caulking and hardware. Call 615-289-8216 or request a free quote to get the punch list finished before it turns into next year's problem.
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