Musings from You and Me

Why Have a Home Inspection?

In Charlottesville VA. homes are sold as-is. We are a caveat emptor state, that is Latin for Buyer Beware. This is the idea that buyers take responsibility for the condition of the home they purchase, and should examine them before they purchase. The property and all improvements are being sold as-is with no representations or warrenties as to condition. The seller must disclose all defects of which the seller has actual knowledge. To boil it all down to where the rubber meets the road. After the closing occurs, the condition of the property is the purchasers problem.

Sellers most of the time do not have "actual knowledge" of a defect. They are not professionals (for the most part) who have been through all of the homes systems, and can't accurately report things are working properly. Sellers may know they have had a problem and provide a receipt that it was corrected, but is that correction satisfactory?

I was at a home inspection, (all the inspectors I recommend have building experience. Two are Class A Contractors, and One a former Building inspector for the County. This is in contrast to some new inspectors that are ASHI approved, yet have not one day of building experience and have master degrees in marketing though. Their material looks great, I will say that. I have no idea of their inspections, I would be afraid to recommend them) and the ceiling in the basement was a suspended drop ceiling. This inspector routinely pushes up a few tiles to look. He amazed me when he kept pushing them up, and called the purchaser over.

There was a tremendous amount of mold growing along all the joists. He called it "suspicious fungi" but we had it tested and it was pennicillum, and aspergillum. This mold was also found in abundance in the attic, so much in fact that when the light was flipped on, after the hatch removed, he initially thought there had been a fire.

The seller truly had not a clue, I am confident. It was an expensive problem that was mitigated. We asked that the mold test be re-run after the mitigation completed to ensure the job was done properly. This was a prudent thing to have done, as there were additional actions necessary to mitigate the problem.

The repair cost was placed exactly where it should have been, on the seller. The purpose of the home inspection is really to find out what as-is truly is! Buyer Beware, have an experienced and skilled Realtor represent you!

posted by FineVirginiaLiving.com @ 12:28 PM