Tempted to Waive the Inspection? Try a Pass/Fail Inspection, Instead

By in Buyers with 0 Comments

If you’re buying a house in our current seller’s market, you might be tempted to waive your home inspection in order to make your offer more appealing to the seller. Maybe you think you can fix things yourself, or your sister is super handy, so some reversed hot and cold faucets or missed grout is no big deal.

Please be careful.

Most agents will discourage you from waiving the inspection entirely. It’s important that you have a snapshot of the health of your future home, even if there is nothing major uncovered. But if the inspection finds something significant, you’d want to know beforehand and give yourself a chance to get out of the sale.

What has become increasingly common is a Pass/Fail inspection. Here’s how it works:

  • The buyer notifies the seller that they’re going to have an inspection, but it is only for their information, and they will not be requesting any fixes from the seller.
  • If the inspection uncovers a huge problem, the inspection “fails,” and the buyer can get out of the deal.
  • If the inspection uncovers only “minor” issues — i.e., anything other than what is outlined by the inspector as something of note — the inspection “passes” and the sale proceeds. In this case, the buyer knows what they need to fix after they take occupancy, and the seller doesn’t have to worry about making any home repairs.

In today’s market, that’s a good compromise between having a traditional home inspection or waiving it altogether.

As always, if you have questions about the buying or selling process, get in touch with us anytime!

Share This
About The Author
Cari McGee

My husband and I came to the Tri-Cities in 1994, and we thought it would be a temporary stop on our way to larger cities. He was a television sports anchor at the time, and we planned to go wherever the "next step up" took us. Twenty-plus years later, we're still here and we've loved every minute of it! We have two children now, and we've found the Tri-Cities area is a wonderful place to raise a family. It's a great place to do outdoorsy things -- I like to hike Badger Mountain or run along the river path. I also love reading ... by a cozy fire in the winter or a beautiful picture window in the summer (with the A/C on!). I've been a licensed Realtor since 2004. I earned my managing broker's license in 2016, which means I can run my own brokerage, or create a team of real estate agents and supervise them, which is exactly what I did when I formed the Cari McGee Real Estate Team in 2018! We have administrative and marketing personnel, as well as additional agents to serve you. I became a director of the Tri-Cities Association of Realtors Board of Directors in 2016, became Secretary/Treasurer of the organization, and was elected to Vice President in 2019. Want to talk about real estate? Click here to schedule a meeting with me!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *