What Happens If the Home Inspection Finds Problems in Minnesota?
A buyer I was working with in Woodbury called me the evening after his home inspection with a tone in his voice that I have heard many times before and that I always want to address quickly. He was panicking. The inspection on the home he had been under contract on for six days had produced a report that was thirty-one pages long. He had read through it that evening after the inspector left and had arrived at a conclusion that I suspected was not accurate. “Lesley, this report is devastating. There are problems everywhere. I think I need to walk away from this house.” I asked him to send me the report before we talked further. He did. I read it that night. The report was thorough. It was also, when read with the context and experience of someone who has been through hundreds of home inspections in Minnesota, a normal inspection report for a home of that age and type. There were maintenance items. There were a handful of recommended repairs. There was one issue that warranted genuine attention and negotiation. And there was the long list of informational observations and minor findings that inspection reports always contain and that many buyers read as a catalogue of catastrophe when they are actually a catalogue of normal home ownership. What he needed was not a decision to walk away. What he needed was a framework for understanding what the inspection had found and what to do with that information. Here is that framework, for him and for every Minnesota buyer who finds themselves holding a home inspection report and wondering what it actually means. Understanding What a Home Inspection Report Actually Is Before you can respond productively to an inspection report, you need to understand what it is and what it is not. A home inspection report is a professional documentation of every observable condition in the home that the inspector believes is relevant to a buyer making an informed decision about the property. This includes safety concerns, defects that affect the home’s function or value, items that are at the end of their useful life, maintenance items that need attention, and informational observations about conditions that may warrant monitoring or further evaluation. What a home inspection report is not is a list of things that are wrong with the house in a moral or absolute sense. Almost every home, regardless of age, price, or how well it has been maintained, will produce an inspection report with findings. A brand new construction home will produce an inspection report with findings. A meticulously maintained thirty-year-old home with updated systems will produce an inspection report with findings. The presence of findings in an inspection report is not evidence that the home is a bad home or that you should not buy it. The relevant questions when you receive an inspection report are not whether findings exist but what kinds of findings they are, how significant they are, what they will cost to address, and what the right response is in the context of your purchase agreement and your negotiating position. The Three Categories of Inspection Findings Experienced Realtors and home inspectors often think about inspection findings in three broad categories, and having this framework helps buyers evaluate what they are looking at before getting overwhelmed by the total volume of the report. Safety concerns are findings that represent a genuine risk to the physical safety of the occupants of the home. Examples include exposed electrical wiring, missing carbon monoxide detectors on required levels, handrails that are absent on stairs, improperly vented gas appliances, or presence of knob-and-tube wiring that is in use and potentially overloaded. Safety concerns deserve serious attention and are typically the highest priority items in any inspection negotiation. Significant defects are findings that affect the function, value, or structural integrity of the home in ways that have meaningful cost implications. A roof that is at the end of its useful life and will need replacement in the next year or two. A furnace that is exhibiting signs of heat exchanger failure. Foundation cracks that are actively growing and suggesting structural movement. Water intrusion in the basement with evidence of ongoing moisture. These are issues that would cost thousands of dollars to address and that affect how the home functions. Maintenance items and informational observations are everything else. Caulking that needs to be refreshed around windows. Exterior paint that is beginning to peel in spots. A bathroom exhaust fan that vents into the attic rather than to the exterior. Grading around the foundation that slopes slightly toward rather than away from the house. Minor electrical findings like missing outlet covers or ground fault circuit interrupter outlets that need to be replaced. These maintenance items are real, they represent things the home needs, but they are the normal accumulation of deferred or imperfect maintenance that exists in virtually every home. They are not the findings that should drive an inspection negotiation or a decision to walk away. Reading the Report With Proportion One of the most common mistakes buyers make when reviewing an inspection report is treating every finding with equal urgency regardless of its actual significance. An inspection report that flags a roof at eleven years old with several years of remaining life, a slow drain in the master bathroom, a bathroom exhaust fan venting into the attic, a carbon monoxide detector missing on the lower level, a furnace filter that needs to be changed, and a handful of missing outlet cover plates is not a report full of serious problems. It is a report with one genuine maintenance finding about the carbon monoxide detector, one potentially negotiable item about the exhaust fan, and a collection of minor maintenance observations. Reading that report and concluding that the home has problems everywhere reflects a misunderstanding of what the inspector is communicating. When your inspector delivers the report, ask them directly which findings they consider most significant. A good inspector