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Prepare for a home inspection

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Sellers you are not completely at the mercy of a home inspector, and you shouldn’t let yourself be. Getting anxious about having your home inspected? Don’t be. There are a few things you as a seller can do to prepare the home for a home inspection which can make the experience that much better.

Home Inspection Tips

It’s not about the cleaning
A messy house does not determine the state of the home’s condition. It’s not about the cleaning but about making everything easy to find and easily accessible. Inspectors are required to inspect every space of the house. This includes the attic, underneath the home, etc. Making these spaces easily accessible will go a long way. When inspectors cannot gain easy access to important components of the house buyers might feel nervous it is an indication that the seller is trying to hide something. That being said, the home inspector will need to test all the appliances so make sure you take your dirty laundry out of the washer and dryer.

Take a look at small spaces

Have you ever looked in your crawl space? Probably not, especially if you have no need for that space. A home inspector will look in that space so you may want to take a glance to make sure the home inspector can access the crawl space and to make sure there is nothing in that space that might stop the inspector from doing a proper inspection. This includes access to the heating systems and garage.

Outside the house

Some of the best steps a seller can take before a home inspection is to take a look outside the house.

  • Clean out dirty gutters or remove debris from the roof
  • Trim trees, roots, and brushes back
  • Ensure that all doors and windows are in proper operating condition
  • Replace any blown lightbulbs

These small steps are easy to do but will also make a big difference for a home inspection

It’s not the time to get cheap

If you, the seller, notices something in the home that needs to be repaired then repair it before the home inspection. However, make sure to repair it properly or hire a professional if needed. Sometimes a botched repair can cause more issues than identifying the problem in the home inspection instead. Definitely don’t try to conceal any defects because when the home inspector finds it, and they will, you’ve now made the buyers very nervous.

 

At Divinity Inspection Service we’re not just careful about the things in your home, we take great care to inspect your house without creating any messes. We take the extra time to make sure both the buyer and seller feel comfortable.

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Why do I need a home inspection?

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Often people have a misconception about what a home inspection is all about or what it is intended to provide. Divinity Inspection would like to clear up some of your concerns. First of all, no inspection should be considered to be a guarantee of finding all defects. In the real world this just cannot be accomplished. Inspectors do not have the option of probing into finished surfaces or concealed areas.

That being said, what we look for are indicators of some condition that may raise a question or concern of a past or current situation. Some conditions may only present themselves only occasionally such as flickering lights or waste line back ups. It’s every inspector’s hope that such situations crop up during the home inspection, but we’re not always that lucky.

A property inspection is not intended as a code compliance evaluation. Building codes by the way are minimum standards and can vary widely by state, country and even village. There are also new versions of each code that are generated from time to time. Keeping up with all them is next to impossible. So we look for conditions that meet national standards as well as what we call “best practice.” Our inspection is based upon the conditions as they exist at the time of the inspection. We cannot warrant that conditions will not change after our evaluation.

In our inspections we are primarily concerned with issues that have to do with safety and/or significant repair cost. Much of what we find we consider to be normal wear & tear items that would be corrected after settlement. These are not conditions that would necessarily warrant a request of the seller to repair. Such issues are secondary to us, ones that we do not give as much attention to when we go through a home. For example, the need for some minor grouting or caulking in a shower stall would be minor. On the other hand, loose tile and indication of water damage in the wall would major and be of more concern; and be a reasonable request of the seller to correct.

We have no authority to enforce standards but rather to merely point out conditions as they exist and make recommendations. We will recommend repair to minor grouting in the shower stall just as we would for a leaking roof. Our goal is to help our client distinguish between the significant needs of the home and those that are more commonplace.