Did my house pass? I hear that question sometimes after a Home Inspection. There is no pass and fail where the IHome Inspection is concerned. The one who determines if the house passes or fails is you, the buyer. The home inspector is simply and extension of you. He is hired help for you to help you inspect the house. You have hired his help and have paid him to write a report on the house and that inspection report belongs to you and nobody else. It doesn’t belong to the government, the real estate agent, the home inspector, or anyone else besides you and therefore no one else has the right to tamper with it or pass it around without your permission. The Home Inspection is yours. You paid for it. You authorized it. Always think of your Home Inspection this way. The home inspector is just reporting to you what he observes regarding the house. The inspector is not an appraiser or a real estate professional. He doesn’t know if the house is a good buy. He doesn’t usually know what you are paying for it. He doesn’t study real estate markets (normally). He doesn’t know what kind of concessions the seller may be willing to make, and therefore how can he say a house passes or fails? What does it mean for a house to pass or fail anyway? If a house passes that would mean that you should buy it, Right? How can a home inspector tell you that? If a house fails wouldn’t that mean that you shouldn’t buy it? How can a home inspector tell you that?
A Home Inspection can reveal many things. It may reveal that the house has been eaten up with termites, that there is a foot of water in the crawlspace and that all of the copper pipe has been stolen from under the house. Does that mean the house fails? Not if the seller is willing to make you such a good deal that you can pay for all repairs and still have an investment that is below market value. What if the Home Inspection reveals that this is the perfect house! Does that mean the house passes? Not if it is the most expensive house in the neighborhood and there have been five murders on that block in the last two months. Would that pass?
You should always think of the Home Inspection as something you, the buyer did. After all, you did inspect before you made the offer didn’t you? You looked at the house, you walked through it, you walked around it. You observed. Then YOU hired someone to look at it a little closer for YOU to help YOU determine if the house passes or fails. And only YOU can make the decision as to whether to buy or not. You make that decision based on information you gather. The Home Inspection is just one piece of that information.
For more detail on what a HOME INSPECTION covers, please see my blog titled Description of A Home Inspection.
Thank you. I hope this information has been helpful.
EARL PAYNE
NC LICENSED HOME INSPECTOR
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