Pre-Inspection Red Flag?

[Anonymous]

Square One home inspections is amazing, for anyone looking. Very thorough pre-inspections.

[Anonymous]

Maybe the crack was nbd. it's hard to know. You'd have to get a structural engineer in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the crack was nbd. it's hard to know. You'd have to get a structural engineer in.

OP here. To each their own. I trust my inspector. He also saw the basement walls of the house bowing in and thought the foundation was being pushed from the front of the house. He has never encouraged us to walk away from a house before, so I feel confident in our decision.

This is the exact reason I will *always* get a pre-inspection before putting forward an offer. Will be very interesting to see what this house goes for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they know about it, and they’re not disclosing it, that is one thing and definitely unethical.

But since they have to disclose whatever you tell them, asking to not be told seems like the obvious ethical thing for the agent to do. If they don’t hear about it, they don’t have to disclose it.

Yep. And it would be one thing if inspectors were highly regulated, consistent, and reliable. But only a foolish seller would accept reports knowing that they would then have to turn around and disclose a bunch of nonsense.

[Anonymous]

OP, did the house sell with no contingencies? Having to waive the inspection contingency to win in this market makes me so nervous...

[Anonymous]

Ha. If you are going to pass on the house, I'd send the listing agent the report and say - hey there's a crack in the foundation.

Oops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, did the house sell with no contingencies? Having to waive the inspection contingency to win in this market makes me so nervous...

Tomorrow is the deadline for offers and I'm sure this will sell quickly (lots of foot traffic and interest because it was priced for a bidding war). I feel like it is very rare to have an inspection contingency these days, which makes me hope whoever gets it did their due diligence up front.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha. If you are going to pass on the house, I'd send the listing agent the report and say - hey there's a crack in the foundation.

Oops.

LOL, very tempting.. but almost all pre-inspections these days are "walk and talks" because inspections are limited to 1 hour, so no actual report to provide. Just what he told us (and we took notes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha. If you are going to pass on the house, I'd send the listing agent the report and say - hey there's a crack in the foundation.

Oops.

LOL, very tempting.. but almost all pre-inspections these days are "walk and talks" because inspections are limited to 1 hour, so no actual report to provide. Just what he told us (and we took notes).

I'd still email them a recap of the conversation. Honestly, what they are doing is unethical. Passing on a major defect to a buyer in this market. It's wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha. If you are going to pass on the house, I'd send the listing agent the report and say - hey there's a crack in the foundation.

Oops.

LOL, very tempting.. but almost all pre-inspections these days are "walk and talks" because inspections are limited to 1 hour, so no actual report to provide. Just what he told us (and we took notes).

I'd still email them a recap of the conversation. Honestly, what they are doing is unethical. Passing on a major defect to a buyer in this market. It's wrong.

I don't think you can judge what sort of defect this is second hand on the internet. Most foundation cracks are non-issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha. If you are going to pass on the house, I'd send the listing agent the report and say - hey there's a crack in the foundation.

Oops.

LOL, very tempting.. but almost all pre-inspections these days are "walk and talks" because inspections are limited to 1 hour, so no actual report to provide. Just what he told us (and we took notes).

I'd still email them a recap of the conversation. Honestly, what they are doing is unethical. Passing on a major defect to a buyer in this market. It's wrong.

I don't think you can judge what sort of defect this is second hand on the internet. Most foundation cracks are non-issues.

Fair. But then it shouldn't be an issue to tell the listing agent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On several properties we have recently looked at, listing agent makes it clear that information learned during a pre-inspection is for our purposes only and should not be shared with the listing agent.

I understand that in this market, pre-inspection findings are not usually points of negotiation but solely information for potential buyers. But this reeks to me of "knowing" there is something wrong, but wanting plausible deniability (la la la, holding my ears) if they never 'actually' learn it is an issue.

In one of these houses, we scheduled a pre-inspection and within 5 mins, the inspector found a huge crack in the foundation that seemed to span the length of the house. It was obvious there were several previous attempts to patch (cover) the crack but it re-emerged. Inspector's opinion was to walk away from the house, and we did - no regrets. But I have to believe both the seller and listing agent "know" about this and are trying to sell the house without having to disclose.

My lesson in all of this -- a pre-inspection is money WELL-spent. Major bullet dodged.

Anyone else think this is completely unethical of the agent/seller? Are you at all concerned if a listing agent writes this about a property you are considering?

It is completely standard protocol for listing agents to write that they dont want info from a preinspection to be shared with the sellers. In some cases the listing agents will write that if info is shared with them about problems found in the preinspections, that the buyers/agents could be held responsible for any consequences that the sellers face as a result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On several properties we have recently looked at, listing agent makes it clear that information learned during a pre-inspection is for our purposes only and should not be shared with the listing agent.

I understand that in this market, pre-inspection findings are not usually points of negotiation but solely information for potential buyers. But this reeks to me of "knowing" there is something wrong, but wanting plausible deniability (la la la, holding my ears) if they never 'actually' learn it is an issue.

In one of these houses, we scheduled a pre-inspection and within 5 mins, the inspector found a huge crack in the foundation that seemed to span the length of the house. It was obvious there were several previous attempts to patch (cover) the crack but it re-emerged. Inspector's opinion was to walk away from the house, and we did - no regrets. But I have to believe both the seller and listing agent "know" about this and are trying to sell the house without having to disclose.

My lesson in all of this -- a pre-inspection is money WELL-spent. Major bullet dodged.

Anyone else think this is completely unethical of the agent/seller? Are you at all concerned if a listing agent writes this about a property you are considering?

It is completely standard protocol for listing agents to write that they dont want info from a preinspection to be shared with the sellers. In some cases the listing agents will write that if info is shared with them about problems found in the preinspections, that the buyers/agents could be held responsible for any consequences that the sellers face as a result.

How is this legal? Can you point to a law that says this? Assuming no contract in place with buyer, how can this be required?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha. If you are going to pass on the house, I'd send the listing agent the report and say - hey there's a crack in the foundation.

Oops.

LOL, very tempting.. but almost all pre-inspections these days are "walk and talks" because inspections are limited to 1 hour, so no actual report to provide. Just what he told us (and we took notes).

Inspectors can still provide reports for "walk and talks".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The crack in the foundation definitely sounds crazy! But at the same time, inspectors will come up with some super random wacky stuff and it’s such a mixed bag. The standards for being an inspector are really low, and I wouldn’t want to have an additive list of all of the ridiculous junk that half trained “inspectors” came up with when I myself did not get to choose the quality of the inspector. Imagine you had 10 people doing pre-inspections. Are you really supposed to present the 11th person with a list of all the crap that the first 10 came up with? Particularly when you know some of it is ridiculous and just wrong? The point of inspections is for everyone to have their trusted representative. You probably wouldn’t trust an inspection report that the seller gave you, you’d want your own. Why would you expect sellers to trust yours?

OP here. I'm not suggesting a seller should provide an inspection, but they are supposed to disclose any known issues with the house (and I think a foundational issue is a BIG one, not just something silly or trivial). In this specific situation, it appears as though there was knowledge of the issue (based on the attempts to cover it), which they did not list in the disclosures combined with a "don't tell us anything from your inspection!" requirement. This is fishy to me.

You're obviously not in Virginia. There is no disclosure requirement here.

There is no disclosure requirement in MD either except for latent defects.