Today I want to discuss home inspection and I’m going to do two parts of the segment, one on buyers and one on sellers. So first I’m talking from the buyer’s perspective, when it comes to home inspection.
Home inspection is part of our due diligence process. When we have that 30 to 40 days and the transaction, home inspection’s important part of the due diligence process because it reveals potential problems with the home. So there’s a few ways to look at this.
The first is once the home inspection is conducted by a third party, licensed professional, usually inevitably a list of problems arises with the home. Some can be minor, some can be major, but this inspection tells us kind of what is what. So there’s two ways from a buyer’s perspective to look at this, you can either: 1) ask for the repairs or 2) ask for a credit, and there’s a few ways to do this.
The first is: you go through your list with your broker and a number of items too, it’ll say that they want the item to be inspected more closely by a licensed professional, whether that’s a licensed plumber, a licensed HVAC contractor, a licensed electrician. So you have to determine with your broker what problems warrant that because many of these issues can be taken care of by a general handyman who’s not licensed, but obviously very knowledgeable in carpentry and items like that.
The second part to look at this and say, okay, we’ve got this list, how much money do we want to ask for an addition off the price of the house or as a credit so we can take care of this list after the transaction closes.
It’s really up to you and your real estate broker, what way you want to kind of handle it. Some people want the repairs done. Some people want the credit because they feel more comfortable having their own person do that.
So after that is done, whether you do a credit or a repair, you want to make sure that it’s done. So the repair or the credit part is very simple. You do a due diligence repair request form, you get that number and it’s signed off and you get that credit at closing.
Repairs are a little bit more complicated. After the repairs are done, you want to make sure they’re done correctly. The easiest way to do that is: number one – you get receipts to show that the repairs actually have been done. But you can actually – little known fact – hire the home inspector again for re-inspection. It is going to cost a fee, but the home inspector will go back and look at those items that you’ve requested get repaired.
So really, home inspection, part of the due diligence process, you either handle it by getting repairs done or asking for a credit, and then you want to make sure that’s done by getting the credit at closing or possibly having the home inspector go back through and asking for the receipts.
Again, thank you for having me. If you have any questions on home inspection, please let us know.
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About Nolan Formalarie
Nolan Formalarie has been in the North Carolina Real Estate Industry for over 8 years and enjoys every minute of it. He is involved in every aspect of the industry including selling and purchasing residential property, home watch services, property management, association management and construction.
