Seller is wants to kill deal if we test for Radon!?

Question

I'm in the process of purchasing an occupied multi-family investment property. I booked an inspector to come out in a few days to test everything. The seller heard we were testing for radon and threatened to kill the deal if we do. Any idea why the seller would do this?

Mike McCarthy · Answer

If you spend any time reading about radon online, you’ll quickly find your way down a rabbit hole similar to the whole ant-vaxx movement.

Some people don’t think radon is a big deal, others see it as the end of everything (ok, that’s probably a bit exaggerated). In reality, it’s somewhere in between.

The home I’m living in now was tested and averaged 11 (EPA max is 4 over 24 or 48 hours). The testing is more complicated, but I had a radon fan and piping installed by a certified contractor for less than $1,000.

The house I was selling tested at 2.4. But the buyers had a new baby, and wanted to get it mitigated. They paid for the installation which was about $1,500 (in NJ where everything is more expensive)

Do at the end of the day, just figure in $1.000 -$1500 to your Reno budget and move on. You can get it tested after you buy.

Also take a walk around the neighborhood and see how many houses have the telltale fan/pipe combinations. You can get a good feeling that way too.

Account Closed · Answer

Sure. They don't want to know. If there is Radon, you probably won't buy the property and they are stuck having to disclose that Radon was found. They may have to spend a bunch of money mitigating the Radon.  In their case, ignorance is bliss. It's dishonest on their part, but they are the seller. I'd walk. Who knows what else they've been dishonest about and you won't find out until it's too late.

Max T. · Answer

Radon costs about 2k to mitigate around here....

Bill B. · Answer

I think there’s also a winter summer component. Though I don’t remember which read lower. Our MN property read 3.8 on the long test. (Might have even been a week?) during our inspection. It’s got s crawl space so fixes could run from as cheap as plastic sheathing over the ground to a pvc pipe vented out the side of the house.

There have been some horrible scare tactics used in regards to radon. I would like the cdc or a college or somebody without a vested interest to do a study to see if there is any lung cancer variances among non-smokers in areas with high radon and those without. Shouldn’t be hard. I grew up in MN and nobody did anything about radon when I was young. So had lung cancer gone way down in the last 20 years? I tend to doubt it.

It is one of the weird substances that the government says there is zero safe level of. But they figured out they couldn’t make every house read zero, to they picked a number. I THINK, today’s number is lower than the random number they first guessed at. (From previous studies I did back when I cared about the house I was buying.)

One year awhile back they offered free kits to everyone here in Vegas but then they went away. I assume all the numbers were low enough they couldn’t sell anyone on the dangers and make money so they went away.

Mike Cumbie · Answer

@James Davies

Our contract has words to the effect of: Seller to perform the following tests (You list the home inspector, furnace, chimney, radon, lead based paint) blah blah. If you didn't put Radon in the beginning you are changing the terms of the contract. You came to terms with certain inspections and have changed the terms on your own. If Radon testing was part of your initial offer then he has the opportunity to decide on yes or no. If it's not part but you decide to add it (Because a home inspector recommends the upcharge), regardless if I am concerned about Radon or not I start to question what else the buyer is going to try and pull.

Teri Feeney Styers · Answer

@James Davies I'm not sure how you are going to get clear results in an occupied building anyway - too much coming and going. The test takes 48 hours and the spaces should be left alone during that time. They need to test at the "lowest living space" -

Jay Hinrichs · Answer

I would say 1 out of 10 homes I sell the folks will do a radon test in the Oregon market.. never had one done in Charleston.. and pretty common in our Lehigh valley PA areas we work.

all our new construction though does already come with radon mitigation built in per code.

its not a big deal though.. you could skip the radon test.. and then do it after you own it and if you need to mitigate it you just run the system in .. not sure on MF how expensive that would be but on SFRs its not much 1 to 2k..

Mike Cumbie · Answer

@Bill Brandt

Radon in our area takes 48 hours of monitoring. The inspector would have to place a "meter" and come retrieve it 48 hours later. I would guess the seller would know when someone said "I need access 48 hours later to pickup my testing equipment from the basement". A common complaint in occupied buildings is exactly what you said. .. How accurate is that number? If doors are opening and windows are opening and people are going from room to room how accurate is your test?

Bill B. · Answer

In MN radon is just an option on the standard inspection. I don’t know how seller would find out (if you planned on doing it or just went ahead and did it.) but as stated the building is supposed to stay relatively sealed.  Opening and closing doors and windows will lower scores.

Thomas S. · Answer

Ignorance is bliss. I do not test for radon and do not want to know myself when I buy.

It is up to you but if it were me, for a rental, I would drop your requirement to test. I have never tested for it in my personal home so would not bother for a rental. It is not a significant enough of a issue to lose a good deal.

Seller is wants to kill deal if we test for Radon!?

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