subject: The Importance Of Pre-purchase Building Inspections [print this page] A pre-purchase building inspection is quite simple. It is a non-evasive visual inspection of the building. The purpose of this procedure is also simple. It is done to assure a potential home buyer that they will be buying a house free of any apparent structural damage or problems. It is a house version of test driving before buying. What inspectors will be looking for is to see if there are any major damages to the house. After all, nobody wants to buy a house only to find out a few months later a lot of money will need to be spent on repairing or restructuring a house. However there are a few things that need to be understood what a building inspection includes.
Most pre-purchase building inspections will look for minor and major defects. The thing to remember here is that no house or building is perfect and there will always be one problem or other. The question the new buyers will have to ask themselves is what type of problem can they handle or deal with. There will always be unexpected repair issues with any used building. The bottom line is that no buyer should cancel a deal based on minor problems. All buildings will have routine maintenance and problems to deal with. Most of them will be easy and relatively inexpensive to deal with. It is not realistic to expect the seller to deal with every little problem with the building.
The buyers real concern should be to find out if there are any serous problems with the building that could affect its market value, or worse, cause injury or harm to its occupants. A building that measures around 2000 sq ft, the inspection cost can be anywhere from 200 to 600 dollars. Inspections should always be done by a professional who follows nationally accepted Standards of Practice and Ethics agreement. Usually the inspector is not required to do anything that may be potentially dangerous, such as dig around to inspect plumbing and walk on pitched roofs. The inspector is also not required to move personal objects of the present owner, if it happens to get in the way of inspection. Standards of practice can vary from place to place, but they all operate with similar rules.
The job of the inspector is to look at the entire building from the foundation to the roof top. There will be hundreds of details to look into and the time it takes will depend entirely on the age and size of the house. Older houses will more likely have outdated items which will need more time for a thorough inspection. In most situations it is not possible to inspect every little item of the building. In this case it will be clearly stated in the contract and the reasons will be given. The best thing to do in this case is to talk to the inspector directly and get any doubts cleared. The buyer should also understand that home inspections are only a visual examination of the house, not a guarantee or insurance policy. Mechanical accessories can fail at anytime after purchasing the building.
by: Eric Simon
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