Why should a home warranty clause be part of a board contract?
It seems ridiculous that my board contract is a free marketing tool for home warranty companies who provide costly, limited warranties--with trade call fees frequently dwarfing the actual cost of repairs made. On top of that, the home warranty clause is further complicated by the additional "at the expense of the (__ BUYER __ SELLER)" verbiage.
If the buyer is paying for the warranty himself, none of this belongs in the contract in the first place. Since the buyer pays for and benefits from the warranty, and the seller has nothing to do with it, there's really no reason to establish a "meeting of the minds" through the contract over it.
What if we want the seller to pay for the warranty? Why bother with such complicated itemization? Just adjust the purchase price down by the cost of the warranty and have the buyer pay for the warranty. Ditto for surveys. The net would still be the same for both sides.
One could also ask: Why should a survey request clause be part of a board contract? Our contract has a whole section devoted to whether or not a new survey will be ordered and who will pay for it. Again, if the buyer is paying for it, it's really none of the seller's business. If the seller is paying, why itemize?
Speaking of surveys, something that would actually be useful in our standard contract would be a "survey satisfactory to buyer" contingency to address any misrepresentation by the seller and/or his agent(s) over lot dimensions and encroachments. Needless to say, we have no such clause in our standard purchase agreement.
All of this wastes so much time and paper...
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