Don’t Lose The House Over A Loose Toilet Seat!

During the home buying/selling process there will most likely be an inspection conducted. The buyer generally has the right to inspect the home in any way they would like. They can do it themselves or hire an inspector. This inspection will inevitably come up with findings, even in a brand new house. How these findings are dealt with is important. 

A home inspector is hired to find issues and I can guarantee you, he will find them, that’s their job. In general, the older the home, the more issues will be found. Inspectors are usually pretty good at indicating which findings pose a safety hazard and those that do not. 

Once the findings have been delivered to the buyer, now what? The buyer at this point has some options, do nothing and accept the house as is or ask for a credit at closing to remedy any defects. But now the question is, what do you want remedied and how much should you ask for.

So let's think about this, all houses have issues. Asking to have everything fixed is unreasonable and will probably alienate the seller. We recently had a small house under contract and there were a few defects uncovered that posed safety risks and a whole bunch of  small issues that would not be uncommon to find in an older home. The buyer decided to ask for everything on the inspection report to be fixed and in doing so made a request for $19,000 to be credited to him. As expected, the seller refused the request and was so annoyed by the buyer asking for so much that he did not even counter the request and started considering previous offers. The buyer panicked and dropped all requests for repairs and the deal was eventually completed with the buyer receiving no compensation for the defects. 

The lesson here is that a negotiation is a two way street, as long as all parties act in good faith and make reasonable requests of one another, the deal usually rolls along smoothly and makes it to closing without any issues. Once a party acts unreasonable in the mind of the other party, is where problems start to arise and distrust starts to set in. Once this happens the likelihood of one party becoming upset and leaving the deal is greatly increased. Had the buyer only requested compensation for the most significant defects he would have stood a very good chance of receiving his request, but in this case, he ended up with nothing. 

In the case of inspection reports, both parties should look at the report for what it is, it’s just a report and it will be full of findings, some may be significant, most of them will not be a big deal. Focus on what matters and let everything else go. Do you really want to lose the deal over a loose toilet seat? 

 

Real Estate Questions?

Rob Swan

Qualifying Broker, Swan Realty

575-613-4243