When you are ready to make an offer on a house to buy, there is one step you may want to consider taking when making your offer. This step involves adding a contingency to the deal that your offer is only good if the home inspection comes back clean and good. This is a common contingency used by people who are buying homes, but there are three things you should understand about home inspection contingencies.
How The Contingency Works
The first thing to understand is how home inspection contingencies work. If you add a contingency that requires the home to pass an inspection, you will need to hire a company to perform the inspection, and you must pay for it. The inspector will then complete the work and give you a report that shows the findings.
If the report reveals major problems with the home, such as problems with the foundation or structure, you will have two options when it comes to the purchase offer you made. Either you can decide to go through with the deal and still buy the house, or you can back out of the deal without losing any money you put as a down payment. You also have a third option, which is to agree to buy the house still as long as the homeowner fixes the problem discovered in the inspection.
If the home inspection does not reveal major problems, you will be required to buy the house if the owner had accepted the offer you made. In other words, you cannot get out of the deal if the inspection came back fine.
What A Home Inspection Will And Will Not Reveal
A home inspection is designed to help you find major problems in a house, more so than locating a lot of small, menial issues in a home, and this is important to know. If you are expecting the report to reveal every little problem the home has, you are expecting the wrong thing. This is not what a home inspection is for, and it is not how a home inspection works.
Because of this, you should realize that even if the inspection comes back without finding major defects, the home may still have minor problems. In addition, there are parts of the home the inspector might not have even looked at. For example, a home inspection will not include an examination of the home's septic system, swimming pool, or hot tub. If you want to know the state of these types of things, you will need to hire other inspectors to look at them and report back to you.
You Are Free To Negotiate Repairs If Necessary
When the inspection report is complete and you read over it, you should realize that you are free to negotiate with the seller of the house over the issues found in the report.
There are several different ways you can negotiate with the seller, and here are the two main options you have:
- Ask the seller to complete the repairs – The first option you have is to ask the seller to make the repairs before you close on the house. If the seller will not agree to this, you could back out of the deal if you wanted to.
- Ask the seller for a credit so you can make the repairs – The other option is to ask for a credit instead of having the seller make the repairs. The credit would reduce the amount of money you will pay for the house, and this is designed to compensate you for the work that is needed. You can then perform the work on your own.
If you are getting ready to purchase a house, getting a home inspection is a great idea if you want to know the condition of the house you are getting ready to buy. If you have questions or concerns, talk to a real estate agent today.
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