I want to get an inspection on the house I’m buying

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pre-inspection if allowed (which is a less involved inspection prior to putting in the offer) or put an information-only inspection with right to void in the offer (may be a dealbreaker if others offer no contingencies at all).

"Right to cancel/void" inspections are no different than inspection contingencies from a seller's perspective. It is in practice no different than a regular inspection contingency. Best way forward is to do a pre-bid inspection (either before the opens of on Sunday night/Monday morning). Then you know what you need to in order to make your strongest offer. In this market there will be offers waiving inspection (because they did pre-bid), appraisal and financing. You are unlikely to win without waiving.

This isn’t true. We accepted an offer with an information only inspection and what it meant was that we weren’t going to get nickle and dimed for minor repairs. Sale went through fine and nothing on inspection caused any issues. If we allowed a regular inspection we’d probably have had to pay a few thousand to repair stuff.

we did inspection with right to void (e.g. no negotiations) with a 24 hour turnaround-- we offered on a saturday, heard back yes sunday morning, did inspection sunday afternoon and signed off. there were other buyers as back ups if we had walked but the owners knew there was nothing to walk away over. to be fair this was in spring 2020 when the market was less crazy than now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We put in an offer for asking and "as-is" but with an inspection. I think the understanding was that the offer was as-is unless the inspection revealed something genuinely problematic. It seemed normal to me and the agent was the one who said it would happen this way.

I would never have bought a house without an inspection. The inspection did reveal a bunch of small easily fixable things, but had we discovered a major fault with the foundations, we could walk away.

The misinformation on this board is astounding. "As-is" isn't a legal term. It wasn't a contractual term for you. There are no "understandings," just the legal terms in your contract. You either had an inspection contingency or you didn't. Your contract didn't state that you could void your contract only if the inspection revealed something genuinely problematic. That's very nebulous and would have been malpractice if your agent actually wrote that in your contract.

Legality aside, there’s also the issue for the seller that an inspection could spook a buyer into breaking the contract and giving up the EMD (which would be hard to keep anyway). If I were a seller and had other offers without an inspection at all, the “as is inspection” offer would have to be significantly higher and have a large EMD for me to consider it equal to one without an inspection.

The fact that sellers prefer no contingencies has already been discussed ad nauseum. And it's not "legality aside" - contingencies are contractual terms that provide the legal right to buyers to void the contract.

I said legality aside because yes there are legal rights BUT an inspection gives a NOT legal, NOT written in the contract reason for a buyer to break contract. That’s the whole point. Allowing ANY inspection regardless of any legal protection could spook a buyer leaving a seller relisting.

You couldn't be more wrong. The inspection contingency is the legal reason for the buyer to void the contract and it's written in the contract. Why do you come here just spewing random guesses and doubling down on it when you have no idea how this works?

[Anonymous]

We put in an offer with an “as is with inspection” clause that said we are buying as is but want an inspection and can walk away if something comes up that we didn’t like. Our offer was accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We put in an offer for asking and "as-is" but with an inspection. I think the understanding was that the offer was as-is unless the inspection revealed something genuinely problematic. It seemed normal to me and the agent was the one who said it would happen this way.

I would never have bought a house without an inspection. The inspection did reveal a bunch of small easily fixable things, but had we discovered a major fault with the foundations, we could walk away.

The misinformation on this board is astounding. "As-is" isn't a legal term. It wasn't a contractual term for you. There are no "understandings," just the legal terms in your contract. You either had an inspection contingency or you didn't. Your contract didn't state that you could void your contract only if the inspection revealed something genuinely problematic. That's very nebulous and would have been malpractice if your agent actually wrote that in your contract.

Legality aside, there’s also the issue for the seller that an inspection could spook a buyer into breaking the contract and giving up the EMD (which would be hard to keep anyway). If I were a seller and had other offers without an inspection at all, the “as is inspection” offer would have to be significantly higher and have a large EMD for me to consider it equal to one without an inspection.

The fact that sellers prefer no contingencies has already been discussed ad nauseum. And it's not "legality aside" - contingencies are contractual terms that provide the legal right to buyers to void the contract.

I said legality aside because yes there are legal rights BUT an inspection gives a NOT legal, NOT written in the contract reason for a buyer to break contract. That’s the whole point. Allowing ANY inspection regardless of any legal protection could spook a buyer leaving a seller relisting.

You couldn't be more wrong. The inspection contingency is the legal reason for the buyer to void the contract and it's written in the contract. Why do you come here just spewing random guesses and doubling down on it when you have no idea how this works?

Well we had been talking about inspections done without a contingency, “information only.” Do those also come with a contingency?

[Anonymous]

I have never heard of inspections without a contingency, and if I were a seller I wouldn’t view that any more favorably than a void-only inspection contingency. If the buyer wants to back out after seeing the report they’ll just claim the seller actively concealed the defects. The seller isn’t going to waste time fighting over earnest money; they’ll agree to void and relist ASAP.