Does a house inspection kill the deal?

Is any home perfect?

It is important to realize that a seller is under no obligation to repair everything identified in the inspection report. No home is perfect, and it is important for the buyer to be reasonable in their demands for a vendor to address found issues. As long as the dwelling is not brand new, there will always be components in the house at various stages of their life cycle. It is not reasonable to expect everything to be brand new, and normal wear and tear on components throughout the dwelling is acceptable and expected. This is where you need to work closely with your Realtor who should be providing you a summary of similar properties for sale in the area. The properties listed should all have similar parameters and be broken down into a per sq. ft. cost so that you can compare apples to apples. For example, if the inspection report identifies that the roof is at the end of its service life and in need of replacement and you see that the sq. ft. cost is above the market average, it may then be appropriate to ask the vendor to compensate for the worn out roof. But if the pricing is below the market pricing, then the vendor most likely has already accounted for the expenditure of replacing the roof and it would not be appropriate to ask for a further discount (or at least to expect it).

What makes a good inspection report?

The most common style of report in the industry is called a checklist report. It usually contains a series of checkboxes per building component with captions like “Appears Serviceable”, “Functional”, or “Poor/Average/Good”. These are not descriptive terms and often mean different things to different people. Most of these reports have minimal space to expand in a narrative fashion on the problem identified and the client can often be left unsure of the meaning of a specific reported item. This style of report is popular because it is a one size fits all solution to house inspecting. They often come in carbon copies and can allow the inspector to rush through an inspection, ticking off items without really providing substantive information on the current condition of the dwelling.

At SENWI, we do not use a pre-printed checklist-style report. Instead, we create a custom narrative report supported with photos to explain the found defects. Our reports will only have information on the inspected dwelling and you will not have to wade through piles of boilerplate text to get to the relevant data. And because we custom write every report we are able to take as much room as is required to adequately explain the found defect.

We are proud that we exceed the industry average. We will not compromise our standards or the ability to provide you with a detailed and accurate report that you deserve and have paid for—a report that you need to make an informed purchase decision.