buyer found new repair items 4 days before closing

[Shawn Thom]

I am hoping to close on my first rehab/sell this Friday.

During the inspection period the buyer did identify 2 plugs in the kitchen that have reversed polarity and some wiring that needs to go into a junction box in the attic. I have the electrician come out, he finds actual 3 plugs in the kitchen to fix and fixes them, then puts wiring in attic in junction box.

Buyer's do an inspection 2 days ago (that's a rant for another thread) and tell me that other plugs are broken too. I told them we fixed the 2 that were identified in the inspection.

today I get the full list. He has others that have reversed polarity and open grounds. He claims that when they put the junction box in the must have "messed everything up". I get one of the plugs pulled that is said to have a open ground and it doesn't even have a grounding cable in it. I talk to my GC and he said what he thinks probably happened is that the house was originally wired with out them and some one later came and put 3 prong plugs in but never cabled the ground.

So my question is that this was found after inspection period. I think I can show that it was that way prior since it doesn't even have a ground cable.

If I push back they would probably walk and I suspect I'd have to fix it anyway for the next buyer. If it came down to it, I suspect they could get the mortgage company to pull the mortgage off the table so they could get ernest money back etc but that is just a guess.

[Steve Babiak]

Receptacles with a ground prong but no ground wire do not meet code (unless we are talking about a GFCI that is properly labeled). Your electrician should know that. Sounds like your electrician maybe isn't licensed? Odd that he found a third receptacle in the kitchen and then didn't go and check for others elsewhere.

As Mike G. noted, you can use a GFCI receptacle and label them as not having ground (there is specific wording for that label as required by code); a properly labeled GFCI receptacle is allowed to have an "open" ground by code. Or you can switch those three prong receptacle to two prong receptacles, so that there will be no open grounds.

The credits to buyer might work, but if you have to have an inspection by a code official, you might not pass that. You might be in an area where no code official will ever inspect, so there might be nothing to worry about.