Waiving the Inspection, Not the Risk
Post-Settlement Surprises Range From Minor Quirks to Huge Problems
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Saturday, September 6, 2008
It's hard to imagine now, but just three years ago, would-be home buyers were rushing to meet sellers' deadlines for bids a day or two after the first open house.
"There's five offers, or 10 offers or 25 offers," remembered Robyn Burdett, a Re/Max Allegiance agent in Northern Virginia. "You had to present your best foot forward -- as few contingencies as possible."
One of the conditions you dropped when you bid on a house or condo was the right to a home inspection.
In 2005, "It was rare we had a home inspection," said Kris Feldman, an agent with Coldwell Banker who works in Bethesda and Potomac.
So what happened to those people who waived inspections?
An unlucky few found huge problems when they brought inspectors in after the deal was done. Many others found minor quirks that cost a few hundred here or there.
Colette Fozard, a legal assistant who lives in Hyattsville, bought her house in June 2005. She toured the house on a Sunday, and bids were due on Tuesday at 2 p.m.
She and her husband Chuck, a computer programmer, "talked a lot" about skipping the inspection. "We really thought about it Sunday night, Monday morning."
Fozard had owned a house before in Anne Arundel County, and because of that, she said, "I knew what I was really giving up."
She stopped telling friends that she had waived her inspection when she got sick of the responses: "What, are you nuts?"
She could have gotten an inspection for information only on the day between the tour and the bid, but work was hectic and she let it slide.
So they bid $320,000, $5,000 more than the asking price, with escalation clauses up to $335,000. They weren't the highest of the three bids -- that was $345,000 -- but that offer was contingent on the sale of the buyers' house.
