House completion levels, meaning shell, white box and turnkey, are words families first meet in quotes and that nobody explains. They are not official terms: each supplier defines their own content. That is why two quotes both promising a white box are often for very different scopes.

This article sets out eight differences between house completion levels: what each contains, what stays with the client, how to compare prices and liability, and when each choice makes sense.

1. The three house completion levels in short

A weathertight shell is a building closed against the weather: the load-bearing structure, the roof with its covering, windows and external doors, the facade. It is dry and lockable but empty inside. A white box goes a step further: partitions, insulation and internal lining, usually the pipework and cabling of the technical systems, and filled or plastered surfaces. A turnkey house is finished: finishes, technical systems with their equipment, kitchen and sanitary ware.

Of the three house completion levels, only the last has a roughly common meaning, and even that differs between suppliers. What our own complete offer includes is set out in our article on the turnkey house price.

2. What stays with the client

This is what house completion levels really differ by, because every job not done is somebody’s job. A shell leaves the client the partitions, insulation and lining, the technical systems and their equipment, the finishing, the kitchen and sanitary ware, and the coordination of all of it. A white box leaves the finishing, the equipment, the kitchen and the furnishing.

Two of those lines are large enough to change a decision, so here are our own indicative figures: decent interior finishing starts from 400 €/m² + VAT, lower per square metre on larger houses, and the electrical work inside the house from 26 000 € + VAT.

Site preparation, the foundation, utility connections and outdoor works usually stay with the client anyway. The full list of budget lines is in our article on a house building budget.

3. How to compare prices properly

The most common mistake is to compare contract sums. The correct comparison is the total cost to move-in: the completion level plus every job outside it plus the time to coordinate them. List every line and mark whether it is in the quote or with the client.

The schedule belongs in that comparison too: with a lower level a second project begins once the house is up, with its own tenders and deadlines.

4. Liability and guarantee

This difference is the least noticed and the most important. When one company builds the whole house, there is one liable party and one guarantee. When the house is built in parts, each trade answers for its own part and the borderline cases fall to the client. The classic example is moisture damage where one company installed the insulation and another the vapour barrier; if you split those jobs, the contract has to say who is liable for airtightness.

A lower completion level is therefore not only a financial choice. The division of liability and the clauses of a contract are covered in our article on a construction contract for a turnkey house, and what goes wrong behind a finished surface in our article on hidden construction defects.

5. What has to be written down for a shell

Because the term is not defined in the Estonian Building Code or in any standard, it belongs in the contract line by line: the load-bearing structure and its material, the roof structure and covering, the windows and external doors with their glazing, the facade with its ventilation and wind barrier, and whether insulation is included.

That last point causes the most disputes: one supplier’s shell includes insulation, another’s does not. Ask for it in writing and attach it to the contract.

6. What has to be written down for a white box

Three things are critical here. First, whether the pipework and cabling of the technical systems are installed and to which design, because that decides how simple the later fitting of equipment is. Second, the state of the internal surfaces: filled, primed or only boarded. Third, whether the floor bases are done, including the underfloor heating loops and the screed.

The third matters most, because the underfloor heating solution has to be decided before the concrete is poured. The logic of designing it is in our article on underfloor heating in a new house.

7. When a lower completion level makes sense

The lower house completion levels suit a family with construction experience or trusted trades available, a staged budget where part of the work happens a year later, or a wish for complete freedom in the finishes. They take time, though: self-managed work runs longer than a quote suggests. When it does not pay off is set out in our article on building a house yourself or hiring a builder.

8. When turnkey makes more sense

When the family works full time, has no construction experience and wants a firm date and a single liable party, a turnkey house is usually cheaper than it looks. The reason is not the price but what the client never has to do: tendering, coordination, supervision and waiting. A bank also looks at the whole project, and staged construction under several contracts is harder to finance, as our article on building a house with a loan explains.

Completion level and the occupancy permit

An occupancy permit is granted for a building ready to be used. A shell and a white box are not finished houses in that sense, so the permit follows only once the remaining work is done and the documents exist; moving in, and sometimes the final loan drawdown, has to wait for it.

Plan early who applies for the permit and who collects the documents, because records of concealed work sit with several companies. The requirements are in our article on the occupancy permit for a house.

Solutions in between, and who does the rest

You do not have to choose between three pure house completion levels. A common middle option is a house handed over with all the technical systems in place, where the family does only the floors, the painting and the kitchen; another is a complete service with the kitchen excluded. These keep the builder’s liability where it is technically critical and leave the client the jobs that are easy to order separately.

Whatever is left goes to one main contractor, to several trades the client coordinates, or to your own hands, the variant most often underestimated. Check the companies in the register of economic activities and in the business register.

Summary

House completion levels are agreements, not official terms, so their content belongs in the contract in writing, together with the boundary where one company’s work ends and the next begins. If you would like to see what our quote contains at each level, write to us through the contact page.