County requires driveway replacement on new purchase STL St Louis

[Lesley Martin]

I am a first-time investor who purchased a property in St. Louis, MO (out of state, I live in CA).

We finished the county inspection and they stated we need to replace the driveway. The estimate is $9.8k, which is super high.

The property manager is calling the inspector to see if we can patch up the driveway, which would reduce the estimate. However, I'm wondering if there are other approaches, i.e. gravel driveway. Has anyone else had experiences and wisdom they can share?

Additionally, I re-reviewed the pre-sale inspection. The inspector didn't give notes on the driveway because there were leaves covering the driveway. Next time, I'm going to ask for pictures of the driveway.