House I rehabbed under contract but buyer wants waterproofing guarantee

[Jonathan C.]

Rehabbed a house, under contract with a buyer to sell it post-rehab, home inspection just came in and found some evidence of some mold in the house, which I suspect was caused by humidity or maybe was there when I bought it and we missed it somehow. I have no reason to think the waterproofing is not doing the job.

Problem is, although the house was waterproofed correctly- trench dug around whole base of house, french drain, waterproofing stuff on walls, sump pump- it was done by the GC, not by a 'waterproofing company' that provides a guarantee on the work. The GC is not willing to provide any sort of guarantee. I'm worried the buyer is going to get spooked and not go forward... any ideas on what I can do at this point?

Thanks

[J Scott]

How did the inspector find the mold?

Unless it was through an air-quality sample (which it doesn't sound like it was since you know exactly where the mold is), if the inspector caught it, you should have as well. Before I list any house for sale, I do a complete walk-through (and test everything) just like an inspector would, and I have my project manager fix anything I find.

In fact, throughout my projects, I spend very little time actually working in my properties, but I consider this final walk-through and inspection that I do to be so important that I wouldn't leave it to anyone else (other than an actual inspector).

Try getting your hands on an inspection checklist and do a full walk-through yourself. If you're still not confident that you'd catch all these sorts of things, spend a couple hundred dollars to hire an inspector to do an inspection before you list it for sale. If you have a decent inspector, you should be able to catch most of the issues that your buyer's inspector will find.

Btw, if you do have an inspection before your buyer does, DON'T fix everything that is found. Leave a few OBVIOUS, but inexpensive things for the buyer's inspector to find. If he can't find anything, he may start looking for things to be wrong (it's his job to find problems, so he's going to do it one way or another), and he may point out something that isn't really a problem but will scare the buyer enough that you have to fix it.