As a buyer you’re allowed and, most realtors will agree when we say, very strongly encouraged to have a final walk-through home Inspection of the home you have agreed to purchase.
You have anytime from a few hours to five days before the closing to perform your inspection to assure the house is in the condition that you agreed upon when signing the contract to purchase the home.
The reason for this final walk through is to assure that any repairs that may have been agreed upon to be made by the seller have been made, assure there are no damages that have been done to the home, certain items that were part of the negotiation remained intact.
The final walk through inspection is important because a lot of things can happen to the house in between the signing of the contractual agreement to purchase the house and the final signatures closing the house. For example, in a colder climate sellers may try to save a few dollars and turn down the heat. This could actually cause pipes to freeze and create a very big and costly expense if you don’t walk through the home before the final closing and once the house is closed on you have a lot less power to assure the house gets repaired, at least by them.
Doing a final walk through can also benefit you as the buyer because you may be seeing the home for the first time completely empty. If the owners were living in the home there could have been large cracks, broken windows, stained carpeting, etc. that were hidden well with all of the furniture, draperies, and decorations. If the home is not in the condition agreed upon the seller must bring it to that condition. This is when it’s important to list things such as the carpeting must be freshly cleaned and without stains as part of the contract so you’re not surprised by little Johnny’s juice stain on the carpet that was covered with a throw rug when you walked through to view the home.
A lot of times, especially when juggling all of life’s regular tasks and then adding on the time involved in moving and buying a home, you may be tempted to just not go for a final walk through. It’s not recommended that you do this because it could end up leaving you with some very big and unexpected surprises that may or may not be able to be handled later. Make the time to do a walk through; even two of them if there are problems with the first walk through.
Go through the first time and should the house not be in the condition as agreed upon then let the sellers know what needs to be done and come back again; preferably just hours before the closing to be sure they did what they were supposed to do and no damage has been done to the house while empty either. You’d be surprised how many empty homes, even in very nice neighborhoods get broken into and damaged or vandalized.
Walking through within hours of the closing assures that if this has happened it is noted and must be taken care of, either through the seller’s insurance or if the seller chooses, depending upon how much and what type of damage, paid for out of their pocket. That wouldn’t be a great surprise to walk into once you get the keys to your home and could take the wind out of your sails pretty quickly.
What a Final Walk-Through Home Inspection Is NOT
A final walk through is not a time to renegotiate things that you decide you want to add on or take out of the contract. You cannot take this time to say, “By the way we also want the fridge included because we don’t have one” or “Oh, and the drapes stay right?”
Instead you have the option of making sure it’s the same fridge that was written in as part of the contract or the same drapes as written into the contract but not add items on. In some cases, depending upon the seller, they may have left some items such as drapes or shades that weren’t written into the contract and if you want them that’s fine; ask at the time of the walk through why they are still there and are they planning on leaving them, making sure you tell them that you’re fine with them staying at the house for you to keep.
Otherwise if there are items you don’t want make it known that they must be removed. In other cases they may try to leave an old, unwanted refrigerator which was not a part of the contract and now, during the walk-through should be when you make a note and let them know that this MUST be removed before you will close; otherwise you will be stuck getting rid of appliances that you don’t want or perhaps don’t even work.
Your Buyer’s Agent’s Job
It’s really up to your Buyer’s Agent and your lawyer to make sure the contract is written so that you definitely get certain things that may seem obvious to you but aren’t necessarily so when it comes to a contractual agreement. For instance, there have been people who have come into their new home and the carpeting is gone but the tacking is still there. It was perfectly legal because their contract read “anything nailed down or permanently attached to the house” and technically the tacking that holds the carpeting is nailed down but the carpeting isn’t.
Yes, they may have had the option to take the seller’s to court but the reality is that the contract should have been written in iron clad words including each and every object. They may or may not have won in a court of law but in the end do you think these new, first time home buyers had the money left over to fight in court over carpeting? Probably not, right?
This is another reason why it truly is important to have both an excellent Buyer’s Agent to help guide you and a good lawyer to draw up the contracts. Experienced lawyers and agents have seen just about everything and know what to look for or make sure it’s covered in a contract. A good lawyer is going to be watching out for you and assuring your contract is written to protect you and your interests.
Sometimes a lawyer is shared by the buyer and the seller and if you’re comfortable with that and it saves you money then go-ahead and make that choice; but also know that coming in with your own lawyer assures that you have someone working exclusively for you and on your behalf. That few hundred dollars for a few minutes of his time may sound expensive but compare that to realizing that your contract didn’t really say you got all of the appliances and you walk into a completely empty home and don’t own a single appliance to put in the house. Purchasing new refrigerators and stoves can be a lot more expensive than a couple hundred that would assure you have an iron clad contract.
