Your Rights When The Home Inspection Reveals Problems

If you are buying a house and including a contingency for a home inspection, you generally will have the right to back out of buying the house if the inspection reveals a major flaw with the house. A problem can arise, though, if the seller of the house agrees to fix the entire problem for you. If the seller makes this offer, you might wonder what you should do and what your rights are, and here are a few things you should know about this.

You could agree to continue with the purchase

When a seller takes responsibility for a problem discovered during the home inspection, you could decide to let the seller fix the problem completely and still buy the house. If you choose this option, you should make sure you are involved with the repair process simply to ensure that the seller chooses a good contractor and that the job is completed properly and professionally. You could also request that the seller provide some type of warranty for the work that was completed.

You have the right to not buy the house as long as the contingency was specific

The second thing to understand is that you have the right to not buy the house when a major problem is discovered as long as your contingency was specific about this. If your contingency stated that your offer is based on a satisfactory home inspection, then any type of major problem revealed through the home inspection could be enough to void the contract altogether. If your contract protects you like this and you want to back out of the deal, you should have the legal right to do so, and you should not lose any money on the deal.

You could decide to renegotiate the deal

There is one other option you could consider, which involves renegotiating the deal. If you are not happy with buying the house that has this type of problem, even if the seller completely fixes it, you could ask to pay a lower price for the house due to the inherent problems the house may have due to the problem that was discovered.

Getting a home inspection is always a wise decision when buying such a large asset, like a house, and this inspection will protect you in the deal. You can talk to a real estate agent if you would like more information about homes for sale.

Share