I think it is because if the tap handle doesn’t overhang the sink then wet hands drip water over the bench behind the sink. I have an undermount sink with same issue due to required setback from sink and we are learning to shake hands before turning off tap. Pro for wall mount no gunk around base of tap Negative according to my husband who refused to have wall mounted is the tap connections are in wall so if you get any leaks it’s hard to fix. But this goes same for shower I guess. We did have a faulty basin tap that leaked inside the handle area and down into cabinet so had to get replaced so I didn’t-push for wall mounted again.

We have basin mounted taps in one bathroom and wall mounted in another. The taps we bought are from the same range and using them I find to have little difference. However personally if I was building again I would have the basin mounted for a single reason... if the tap needs replacing in time, then there is no need to rip a hole in the wall to do it. Either type of tap requires you to check your basin and mirror heights so there's no interference particularly if you have shaving cabinets like we did. Another thought to consider from the male perspective... our men prefer a swivel spout as mentioned from other houzzers for easy cleanup when shaving and perhaps a little extra hand room for larger hands. Good luck choosing ;-)

Thank you - yes we are nearly at the end of our build but we are so disappointed they did this. I have contacted the plumber and he said he raised the issue with the project manager who told him to do it like this. I think even if the tap was placed to the left hand side it would make a difference. We have three bathrooms in the house they have done like this. It was originally even worse but I made them get new arms for the showers but it is still not right. I will attach pic of original before we put new arms on.

I am struggling to find any pictures of where someone has the shower fittings higher than their shower screen to see how odd it actually would look like. One of my 101 learnings about getting the wrong tradesperson to "project manage" my bathroom renovation (until he went MIA), was not voicing louder to the plumber's assistant who actually did the shower connections, that what the "project manager" had suggested for heights of shower connections was way too high. I had actually double-checked it on the previous weekend with a friend and we both thought that it needed to be lowered by 100-150 mm, but when I said this to the "project manager" he ignored me as did the plumber assistant who made the connections....I know how a handheld shower only (which is all I wanted) fitting that is at 2070mm in one bathroom and 2020mm in the other bathroom. As there is no shower rail (because I wanted things to look simple), I get my daily stretches just to reach the handheld shower.....I am happy with the progress of my bathroom, except for all of the stuffups caused by this particular "tradesperson/project manager". We live and learn....I can't do anything about what has happened, but can only minimise the impact where possible and learn from all the things that went wrong, if there is ever a next time. I should make a list of the learnings once bathroom is finished.