How I Almost Lost a Contract by Wrongly Suspecting Foul Play

I almost lost a lucrative contract by acting out of haste this past week. 

Here is the article I was going to write:

We all know how dicey things can get when in contract on a house. When you have the seller and listing agent as lawyers, you can imagine how tense things can get.

Currently, I am in contract on a house where the inspector did not pass us on the 4-point inspection. It is only fair that of the long laundry list of repairs needed, the seller should take responsibility for the repairs needed in order to pass the 4-point. In addition, during the walkthru, the agent has them on video casually mentioning that the cast iron pipes in this 100-year-old home have been replaced. This turned out to be untrue as evident in the inspection report. It beats me why someone would like about something that will be proven false. These people obviously have no shame.

As mentioned, when the seller and the agent are both lawyers, they are used to playing hardball and that is the situation I currently find myself in. I have the liberty of going forward in 3 different ways.

1. I can send in a cancellation notice and find some more decent people to deal with.

2. Get an inspection waiver from the insurance company that I would make the required repairs after closing and have them sign off on it. 

3. Similar to number 2 but then flip the house after doing the repairs.

4. Ask the sellers to include the cost of repairs in the purchase price and have the bank finance the repairs. The sellers might be averse to this as we would need to appraise the higher purchase price. 

What options you would do in such a situation?

Here is how the article should have been written had I judged the sellers favorably to begin with.


Currently, I am in contract on a house where the inspector did not pass us on the 4-point inspection. Besides the laundry list of items that needed to be fixed, we expected the sellers to pick up the cost of the HVAC and electrical repairs which would amount to more than $20K.

The seller responded to our request saying that the previous buyer that had been in contract with them got the inspection to pass on HVAC AND electrical. Of course we found that hard to believe. When asking to see the previous inspection report, she delayed by saying she did not have to supply us with it but would do so out of courtesy. We waited a couple of days for her to finally send it to u. 

Wouldn't you know? She actually had a copy of an inspection report that passed! We understood now why she refused to make the 4-point inspection repairs. 

We do plan on making the repairs rather than using some shady inspection company as the Sylvanian electric panel board is old and not up to current safety codes. 

Looking back, we should have given the seller the benefit of the doubt.

Oh about the cast iron pipes? It was actually fully replaced. They simply left an old section in the wall as they did not want to damage the surrounding framing. Other than that, it WAS fully replaced all the way out to the street!