Part 1: Closing my first deal. What I would do differently. Inspection objection

[Sean Link]

I recently closed on my first deal and wanted to share some insights from the experience. When I submitted my offer and it was accepted, the property went under contract. This signified that the seller and I had entered a legal agreement with obligations to fulfill by specified deadlines. One of my responsibilities as the buyer was to conduct an 'inspection objection'. This was my chance during the contract process to highlight any issues with the property, allowing me to request either repairs or seller credits for problematic items.

For this process, I had a 5-day window. By the third day, I had organized for an inspector to assess the property, and I had the report in my hands by day 4. This report indicated two areas of concern that necessitated further investigation by licensed professionals: an electrician and an HVAC specialist.

I managed to have an electrician inspect the property before the inspection objection deadline. However, I was unable to do the same with the HVAC specialist. As it turned out, there was an HVAC problem that was quoted at $15,000 to fix.

In retrospect, I wish I had negotiated for a longer inspection objection period when we first went under contract, or been more proactive about scheduling the initial inspection on the first or second day."

[Brad S.]

Typical procedure would be to ask for an inspection contingency extension, once the specific concerns are found, in order to give you enough time to get the specific specialist inspections completed (i.e. electrician, HVAC, etc). You don't necessarily need to ask for a longer inspection period in the initial contract, since these are unanticipated concerns, and they may have also not been disclosed to you by the seller. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask for more time to complete the additional inspections.

Also, you typically are asked to sign the inspection contingency removal at the time the contingency period is up, you can simply refuse to sign it until you get the other inspections. Now, technically, they can decide to cancel the contract, but that is atypical and unlikely to happen. Especially, since any of those concerns brought up in the inspection/s are now known to the seller and need to be disclosed to any future buyers.

But, all of this should've been explained by your Realtor. Did you use a Realtor?