House Inspection Negotiations

[Jake Morin]

Happy Thursday BP,

I’m in the process of closing on a cabin in the Smoky Mountains region of TN. We just had the inspection done. The inspector came back and said that the roof was marginal. We then had a roof inspector come out who said that the roof has to be replaced within no more than 5 years but is probably already leaking in a few spots (there hasn’t been any rain lately so he can’t find any confirmed leaks but those were his thoughts.) the cost for the new roof is $7K. The seller told us before the inspection that since they came down so much on the asking price (our offer was 250K, they were asking for 269K) that they would not fix any issues found during the inspection. There are multiple small issues that we aren’t even asking to be fixed, but we feel that the 7K for the roof can be reasonably discussed. When we told the sellers agent that we want the seller to pay for the roof because it is such a large expense, the seller became angry. We are currently waiting on their counter offer. The numbers still make sense for us to buy it even if we have to pay for the roof, but I just wanted to use the vast knowledge of the BP community to see if anyone had any ideas on how to move forward. We’ve thought about trying to raise our offer to 257K and then just have the seller give us 7K in cash to pay for the new roof. We are fairly cash strapped and would like to avoid using cash as much as possible. Thanks!

[Russell Brazil]

A roof is easily visible. You didnt need an inspector to tell you how old the roof is. Further, 5 years of life is plenty of life left in that roof.

When Im selling properties, I never negotiate a roof (except flat roofs in the city which are not visible when looking at the property), because anyone can see it, and the relative age of them should be obvious to most people.