This is yet another case of why it's good to have an experienced and knowledgeable Realtor on your side.
In a recent closing I had agreed to provide a carbon-monoxide detector to the buyer. My seller was required to supply one, and I had plenty.
I was only required to supply one, for the bedroom area, but I supplied two (one for the bedrooms, and one to put in the furnace room)... these were two high-end, plug in's with back-up batteries (batteries included). Nice.
When I turned those over at the closing (we have round-table closings, with attorneys on both sides), the buyer's attorney huffed that local law required that the detectors be "hard-wired", and since we hadn't done that... they wanted a $500 credit for their contractor to install them. The attorney insisted that he knew it was legally required because the contractor who was working on his home's remodel, had told him it was a requirement.
I quickly did two things.
#1) I called the local Fire Chief on speaker phone, who quickly disabused him of that notion. Plug-in detectors were totally acceptable, and the battery-backup versions were above and beyond requirements.
#2) I went to the local city website, and pulled down the rules about CO detectors, which also showed that plug-ins were totally acceptable... printed those rules out and handed it to the attorney.
The attorney was embarrassed, and called his contractor, on the spot, and read him the riot act. Our attorney was impressed, and pleased.
My gift of $30 worth of carbon monoxide detectors (and more importantly my knowledge of local rules and regulations) saved my seller $500.00.
nice.
BTW: Are you sure the buyer's attorney wasn't Donald Trump? You know how Donald is always hearing things
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