Understanding North Texas Home Inspection Deficiencies

Understanding North Texas Home Inspection deficiencies is important to your real estate transaction and Selman Home Inspection Company believes that following the advice of the Federal Housing Administration to obtain a home inspection before closing on a property is a good decision. We want to help buyers, sellers and Realtors understand home inspection deficiencies. As professional home inspectors, we protect Realtors, buyers and sellers from legal liabilities and often identify things that most likely should have already been repaired. Home buyers don’t always understand how to proceed when the inspection report reveals problems, areas of concern, safety hazards or needed repairs. Prospective buyers may not be aware of their options. Good Realtors will help their clients make an informed decision based on the inspection results and help their clients understand home inspection deficiencies. There are four common ways for addressing home inspection deficiencies:

Accept Property As Is

If you feel the house is still worth the investment despite the problems identified (home inspection deficiencies) by our home inspection, you can simply continue on the path to purchase the house anyway. When you accept responsibility to buy a property, “As Is”, or accept the property knowing the facts about its condition based on our inspection, be prepared to cover the cost of repairs without blame. Accepting responsibility does not mean a lawsuit targeting your Realtor or the inspector. If you accept the house in "as is" condition, or with the identified deficiencies, you'll be responsible for the cost of repairing them.

A Wiring Deficiency Found During A Selman Home Inspection

Renegotiate The Offer

If the problems revealed in the home inspection report are serious, as a buyer, you may wish to modify your offer to buy. The owner then has the choices of accepting your offer, rejecting the offer, or making a counteroffer. The costs of home repairs vary greatly depending on the system affected and the quality of contractors secured for the job. When deficiencies are identified, Selman Home Inspection will advise clients to seek further evaluation from a certified, licensed specialist about the system or systems in question. This advice is not just to protect the inspector and real estate agent, it is sound professional advice.

Ask The Owner To Do The Repairs

Property owners are not obligated to go through with the sale if you make it contingent on repairs being made based on the home inspection findings. The property owner will often be willing to correct problems in order to proceed with the sale. When asking the property owner to make the repairs before proceeding with the sale, make sure that the needed repairs are understood and that the repairs will be “up to code” and to your satisfaction. Since the home inspection identified the issue in the first place, it is a good idea to have a “re-inspection” performed by the home inspector to insure that the repairs are up to today’s standards.

Keep Looking

Walking away from the purchase and continuing to look for a property in better condition may be in your best interest if the problems are serious enough to consider re-negotiating the sale. Serious problems such as major foundation issues, rotten foundation wood, substandard wiring, separated rafters, basement that floods or spalling masonry may be good reasons to withdrawing your offer. Many times it is better to walk away from a home with serious structural problems and a poor maintenance history (the cause of many defects) rather than to risk paying for those problems as the buyer.

Understanding North Texas Home Inspection Deficiencies

We perform North Texas Home Inspections to the Texas Standards of Practice. We are comparing the property being inspected to “perfect” conditions based on today’s building standards and local code. At Selman Home Inspection, we are not alarmists. Just because an item or system is marked as “deficient” on the home inspection report does not mean there is a major problem and that the deal should be re-negotiated. As professional home inspectors, deficient simply means it is not perfect by today’s building standards. This is always explained to our clients at the time of an inspection. However, if in the opinion of the inspector, we make a statement such as, “recommend that a certified, licensed specialist be consulted for further evaluation”, or “is a safety hazard” this normally identifies a more serious problem that needs to be addressed, but, is not reason to panic and pull out of a contract in most cases.

Here is an example. The inspection report identifies that the bedrooms do not have AFCI protected receptacles. On the inspection report, this is (or should be), a deficiency. However, unless a home in brand new, it most likely does not have AFCI protection in the bedrooms. It is marked as “deficient” by the inspector because today’s Texas Standards of Practice and most local building codes state that AFCI receptacles are required in sleeping rooms. So, just because an item or system is marked deficient, does not mean that the problem is serious and that the deal should be re-negotiated. It is simply a comparison between the property being inspected and perfect.

No home is perfect and deficiencies will always be found in any house, new or old. It is a judgment call by the trained eyes of a professional inspector and the opinion of the inspector who is just doing the job the client hired them to do. As stated earlier, at Selman Home Inspections, we are not alarmist and make every effort to ensure that our clients understand home inspection deficiencies are rarely cause for alarm.

Selman Home Inspections of North Texas
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469-371-3228