After a home seller has accepted an offer, a few things typically take place before the official closing date. A home inspection is one of them. Buyers normally hire a home inspector to check the home for potential safety issues and items close to the end of typical service life.

How Does a Home Inspection Work?

Home inspections normally take 3 to 4 hours for homes of average size. Both the interior and exterior of the home are inspected primarily for safety issues but also for functionality. If the buyer is paying for the home inspection, he or she should be present.

Major issues that could come up include structural issues that require foundation repair and significant plumbing or electrical issues. Other major issues that could come up include Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) issues, water damage and roofing deficiencies. The inspector will provide a full report within a few days.

What Happens Next?

Depending on what the home inspector finds during the inspection, things could go a few different ways afterward. If the inspection comes back with relatively small issues, the buyer could decide that he or she can live with the issues and make the repairs in the near future (assuming that the issues are not a safety hazard). However, if the inspection report shows significant issues needing attention before closing, the buyer and seller will need to negotiate. The seller can agree to have the issues repaired or to take a certain amount off of the home’s sale price to allow the buyer to pay for the repairs. If an agreement cannot be reached, the buyer may need to walk away from the sale and pursue other options.

No matter the result of a home inspection, it is far better to walk into the purchase of a home with open eyes than to realize soon after purchasing the home that there are pricey problems with it.