Home Inspection

• If the contract calls for the home inspection to be done in ten business days after the contract has been executed, the five days would start from the time of signing by the buyer and seller--not from the time of lender approval.
• The buyer would have little success negotiating any costs or repairs if the home inspection was completed after lender's approval. The lender's approval is based on a definite dollar amount to be realized at the closing and they generally do not allow for further negotiations.
• Most often, a short sale will be an as-is transaction, and the seller doesn't have the money to make the repairs and the lender is unwilling to make repairs. That stated, the buyer still has the right to know waht as-is means and withdraw the offer or reduce the offer based on the home inspection.
• Although the approval process takes quite some time, once approved, the closing date stipulated in the approval letter may not allow the buyer sufficient time to complete a property inspection.
• From the seller standpoint, allowing a buyer to wait until after the lender's approval to do the home inspection, thereby giving the buyer the ability to walk away that late in the transaction may force the seller into a foreclosure sale because the seller would not have enough time to find another buyer.