Negotiations after the inspection, part 2: Stuff that shouldn't be negotiated

In last week's blog post, Negotiations after the inspection, part 1: Options for the buyer, I discussed four options that a home buyer has after receiving a written inspection report.

The first two options are pretty straightforward, but the last two items involve negotiations. Today, I'll discuss common home inspection negotiation items that I believe should not be negotiation items.

I'm not a real estate agent or attorney, so this is not real estate advice or legal advice. These are my opinions. I don't share my opinions on negotiations during home inspections, and I do not share them in my inspection reports. This is completely outside the realm of a home inspection, and honestly, it's outside of my area of expertise. However, I (like most people) certainly have an opinion about this stuff. If you don't agree with my opinions, comments are always welcome.

Here's how the Inspection Contingency works in the State of Minnesota: first, negotiations may take place between the buyer and seller before a purchase agreement is ever signed. Once all terms of the Purchase Agreement have been accepted by both parties, including the Inspection Contingency Addendum, the home buyer will have a specified number of business days to have a home inspection performed. The number of days will vary, but we typically see a three to five day period. The number of days can vary further based on the volume of home sales in the market, and can be dependent on the availability of an inspector. Once the inspection period has expired, the buyer will typically have one to two business days to respond. It's during this period that the above listed four options come into play.

Without further ado, here's my list of items that should typically not be negotiated after the inspection.

Known conditions = no negotiations. No price or repair negotiations should take place regarding conditions that were known prior to the home inspection. If a condition is readily visible or apparent, it's not something that was "discovered" during the home inspection. A few examples of known conditions include:

If any of these are going to be negotiation items, they should be negotiated before the inspection.

On the other hand, if a home seller advertises a "new" feature, but that information is not accurate, that would be a completely different story. For example, I was recently involved in a transaction where the seller had mistakenly listed a 30-year-old water heater as "new." The buyer negotiated for a price reduction after the inspection. No problem there.

Also, if a first-time home buyer finds out that a bunch of these items are at the end of their life and they know they won't be able to afford replacements soon, they might decide that the home they're buying isn't the right one for them ... unless perhaps the seller would like to help out. It's not unreasonable to renegotiate at this point, but a price negotiation typically won't help a buyer, because this doesn't give the buyer any more cash to deal with repairs or replacements.

Minor defects = no negotiations. Used houses aren't perfect. Part of being a homeowner means spending time and money on the house. This is something that home buyers should expect, and something to be budgeted. Anyone not cool with that might be better off renting. Here are some small, petty things that home buyers shouldn't ask sellers to address:

Code changes / safety upgrades / energy upgrades = no negotiations. While a home inspection is not a code compliance inspection, home inspectors often recommend safety upgrades due to changes in building codes. It's bad form to ask a seller to make these types of upgrades. That's not to say these safety and energy upgrades are not important, but I think they make for somewhat petty negotiation items. A few of these conditions include:

Of course, there are always exceptions. If new work was performed at a home and advertised as such, it's only fair to expect the work to be done to code. Code is sometimes known as "current safety standards." Immediate safety hazards might also be a good point of negotiation. More on those next week.

In next week's post, I'll cover a number of home inspection conditions that I consider to be reasonable negotiation items.

Author: Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections