Knowledge is the Power for Your Freedom to a Worry Free Home!
A Home Inspection gives the potential purchaser and their Realtor the tools needed to make an informed decision about the condition of the home and reduce libilities for all involved.
What really matters on a home inspection.
Buying a home ? The process can be stressful. A home inspection is supposed to give you peace of mind, but sometimes has the opposite effect. You will be asked to absorb a lot of information in a short time.
This often includes a detailed computer generated report with photographs or a checklist, hand written report and environmental reports and what the inspector himself says during the inspection.
All this combined with the seller's disclosure and what you notice yourself makes the experience even more overwhelming.
What should you do ? Relax. Most of your inspection will be maintenance recommendations, life expectancies and minor imperfection. These are nice to know about.
However, the issues that really matter will fall into four categories:
- Major defects. An example of this would be a structural failure.
- Thing that lead to major defects. A small roof-flashing leak, for an example.
- Things that may hinder your ability to finance, legally occupy or insure the home.
- Safety hazards, such as an exposed, live buss bar at the electric panel.
Anything in these categories should be addressed. Often a serious problem can be corrected inexpensively to protect both life and property ( especially in categories 2 and 4 ).
Most sellers are honest and are often surprised to learn of defects uncovered during an inspection.
Realize that sellers are under no obligation to repair everything mentioned in the report. No home is perfect. Keep things in perspective. Do not kill your deal over things that do not matter. It is inappropriate to demand that a seller address deferred maintenance, conditions already listed on the seller's disclosure or nit-picky items.
A few lines to think about...
- A house can be perfectly compliant with code, but be perfectly unsafe.
- Codes are a minimum standard of required work.
- Being in accord with local building codes is not the same as being safe.
- A home inspector does not inspect for the home to be in compliance with local building codes.
To setup your home inspection: Call 603-826-4207 or e-mail me bakerhomeinspecion@yahoo.com
All Content Copyrighted
|