Allowing Buyer Access To Your Home Before Closing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you own an older home there is new scam some of the buyers agents in Arlington are now pulling.
Put a strong offer in with no contingency- inspection for information only.
Then they ask to have an additional inspection of the fire place.
The fire place guy is in on the scam and scares the crap out of the buyer ( often a younger family). He’ll tell them that the chimney isn’t up to code and must be replaced. It will sound like that home could burn at any moment, and they send the agent back to the seller asking for money back... often to the tune of 20- 30k
Of course the chimney won’t be up to current code. The house was built fifty years ago. Most buyers are ignorant to homes and the maintenance involved.
It’s a scheme to give the buyer some leverage after the fact and bargaining in bad faith.
Do not let a buyer back in after inspection.
It’s a liability to the seller and no good can come of it.

I don’t understand who benefits from this “scam.”

The buyers. How are you understanding this?
It’s a hot market and they know they need to come in strong to win the house. Part of their offer is “no contingencies”. Then they try and come back and renegotiate after the fact.
It’s bad faith.

Okay but for that to be the scam, the buyers have to be in on it. They can't be a younger family ignorant to homes and the maintenance involved.

[Anonymous]

I will say that coming back in for measuring doesn't make sense if they had an inspection. One of the the things I did at the inspection was measure and take photos of everything. Of course, there were two of us so DH could follow the inspector around while I was doing that. Both agents were there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you own an older home there is new scam some of the buyers agents in Arlington are now pulling.
Put a strong offer in with no contingency- inspection for information only.
Then they ask to have an additional inspection of the fire place.
The fire place guy is in on the scam and scares the crap out of the buyer ( often a younger family). He’ll tell them that the chimney isn’t up to code and must be replaced. It will sound like that home could burn at any moment, and they send the agent back to the seller asking for money back... often to the tune of 20- 30k
Of course the chimney won’t be up to current code. The house was built fifty years ago. Most buyers are ignorant to homes and the maintenance involved.
It’s a scheme to give the buyer some leverage after the fact and bargaining in bad faith.
Do not let a buyer back in after inspection.
It’s a liability to the seller and no good can come of it.

I don’t understand who benefits from this “scam.”

The buyers. How are you understanding this?
It’s a hot market and they know they need to come in strong to win the house. Part of their offer is “no contingencies”. Then they try and come back and renegotiate after the fact.
It’s bad faith.

Okay but for that to be the scam, the buyers have to be in on it. They can't be a younger family ignorant to homes and the maintenance involved.

“Don’t worry Sally, I know this is your first home buying experience. Just sign with us. We promise we win every time. We’ll just put in an aggressive escalation clause. We can find something wrong with the house later and get it down to your target price. We do it all the time.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you own an older home there is new scam some of the buyers agents in Arlington are now pulling.
Put a strong offer in with no contingency- inspection for information only.
Then they ask to have an additional inspection of the fire place.
The fire place guy is in on the scam and scares the crap out of the buyer ( often a younger family). He’ll tell them that the chimney isn’t up to code and must be replaced. It will sound like that home could burn at any moment, and they send the agent back to the seller asking for money back... often to the tune of 20- 30k
Of course the chimney won’t be up to current code. The house was built fifty years ago. Most buyers are ignorant to homes and the maintenance involved.
It’s a scheme to give the buyer some leverage after the fact and bargaining in bad faith.
Do not let a buyer back in after inspection.
It’s a liability to the seller and no good can come of it.

This exact situation happened when we sold my Mom 's house in Alexandria
va. Home inspector came in saying one chimney needed $25K worth of work on a beautifully built older home, and he had contractor to fix it. He said would not pass home inspection. My Mom's agent said Oh No, Not happening, she hired her own contractor and got an opinion of $5K for repairs. My Mom gave a sellers concession of $5K. Sounds like the same home inspector. What a racket. Very unethical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you own an older home there is new scam some of the buyers agents in Arlington are now pulling.
Put a strong offer in with no contingency- inspection for information only.
Then they ask to have an additional inspection of the fire place.
The fire place guy is in on the scam and scares the crap out of the buyer ( often a younger family). He’ll tell them that the chimney isn’t up to code and must be replaced. It will sound like that home could burn at any moment, and they send the agent back to the seller asking for money back... often to the tune of 20- 30k
Of course the chimney won’t be up to current code. The house was built fifty years ago. Most buyers are ignorant to homes and the maintenance involved.
It’s a scheme to give the buyer some leverage after the fact and bargaining in bad faith.
Do not let a buyer back in after inspection.
It’s a liability to the seller and no good can come of it.

I don’t understand who benefits from this “scam.”

I don't understand this either.

The offer says they will buy the house no matter what the inspection report says. So, hand over the money and I'll hand you the keys. Don't bug me about your stupid inspector's report and tell me XYZ aren't up to code. That is your problem, not mine. Your offer specifically stated the inspection wasn't going to influence the transaction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you own an older home there is new scam some of the buyers agents in Arlington are now pulling.
Put a strong offer in with no contingency- inspection for information only.
Then they ask to have an additional inspection of the fire place.
The fire place guy is in on the scam and scares the crap out of the buyer ( often a younger family). He’ll tell them that the chimney isn’t up to code and must be replaced. It will sound like that home could burn at any moment, and they send the agent back to the seller asking for money back... often to the tune of 20- 30k
Of course the chimney won’t be up to current code. The house was built fifty years ago. Most buyers are ignorant to homes and the maintenance involved.
It’s a scheme to give the buyer some leverage after the fact and bargaining in bad faith.
Do not let a buyer back in after inspection.
It’s a liability to the seller and no good can come of it.

This exact situation happened when we sold my Mom 's house in Alexandria
va. Home inspector came in saying one chimney needed $25K worth of work on a beautifully built older home, and he had contractor to fix it. He said would not pass home inspection. My Mom's agent said Oh No, Not happening, she hired her own contractor and got an opinion of $5K for repairs. My Mom gave a sellers concession of $5K. Sounds like the same home inspector. What a racket. Very unethical.

Why did you bring up a 6 year old post?

[Anonymous]

Absolutely not. The buyers are allowed inspection within 24 hours (preferably day of closing) but nothing more.
Don’t do it, too many risks. Wait until deed has transferred.

[Anonymous]

Magical S can happen when you aren’t present. I would tell them they can do whatever they want after settlement.

[Anonymous]

Your realtor sucks and just wants the $ from the deal.

Do not let them in until day of closing.

No good deed goes unpunished and if they find something else, they will walk knowing you will have to move heaven and earth to keep earnest $.

No, no, no. Better safe than sorry and you don’t need goodwill. You just need deal to go through.

[Anonymous]

We were at first happy to get a great offer on our house. AS it went 4 weeks, 8 weeks, 2 more weeks and the closing did not get done by the LAST date they set, we decided not to sell it and move back in. During this 10 week period we said they could move some boxes in. They moved everything and now they want to sue because we cancelled because the date passed. We received a lawyer letter saying we must give access to the house. When this happened we changed the locks and said they could if they let us know and can let them in. Also they were sleeping there a couple nights. We said they could sleep there the day before closing because they live 3 hours away. We have retained a lawyer but the stress is awful. Just venting and thanks for listening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. We would have been happy not to sell our house as we did not need to and told our agent to take it off the market so we didn't have to deal with any of the sale crap before we moved out. She instead insisted on bringing this offer. We would have been thrilled not to sell it right now.

There is no financing or appraisal contingency on the contract, so no we did not have to let the appraiser in. I did not realize home inspections these days included inspecting our WiFi router, especially since that moves with us.

Then why didn’t you decline the offer? You accepted their money so be gracious and allow them a day to measure and plan. Inspections are routine so I wouldn’t count that as access. Drawer is weird. WiFi would not bother me. We have poor cell service at our house and depend on it. But we have a separate PW and channel for guests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were at first happy to get a great offer on our house. AS it went 4 weeks, 8 weeks, 2 more weeks and the closing did not get done by the LAST date they set, we decided not to sell it and move back in. During this 10 week period we said they could move some boxes in. They moved everything and now they want to sue because we cancelled because the date passed. We received a lawyer letter saying we must give access to the house. When this happened we changed the locks and said they could if they let us know and can let them in. Also they were sleeping there a couple nights. We said they could sleep there the day before closing because they live 3 hours away. We have retained a lawyer but the stress is awful. Just venting and thanks for listening.

I'm sorry this happened, but that sounds like a MAJOR scam. I would not let them in the door even to get their stuff back.

Why weren't they able to close?

[Anonymous]

No. Do not let them in. Change ALL your passwords.