Why Sacramento Seller Inspections Are Unnecessary Today

Very little reason for Sacramento home sellers to provide seller inspections.

There are plenty of old school agents wandering about Sacramento whose practice is to always order home seller inspections upon listing a home. That’s not my practice. I find it completely unnecessary. I am an old-school agent myself, having started in this business in the 1970s. But I really see little reason for the seller to provide seller inspections to the buyer. Let buyers do their own due diligence.

I’ve had buyer’s agents yell at me, very angry that we did not provide them with a pest report. Why should the seller give seller disclosures that are not required to the buyer? Sellers are required to disclose what they know. They are not required to dig up more defects and present them for consideration, like, here, Mr. Buyer, take a look at all of this crap that’s wrong with my house. I’m doing full disclosure. 

I would say, no, you’re stabbing yourself in the eye with a sharp object. You’re handing over opinions of defects, which you’re not required to do and paying for that mistake in more ways than one. In case a seller believes these reports do not need to be given to the buyer, think again. There are no reports for seller edification only. Once sellers receive a report, it becomes a document of knowledge you must deliver to the buyer.

Some agents tell their sellers to obtain a home inspection, too. They do this under the guise of then the seller will know what is wrong and can fix or disclose it. On the surface, this sounds almost reasonable until you dig below. For starters, the alleged defect might not be a defect and the home inspector could be wrong. Second, the buyer will still obtain a home inspection and that report could contain even MORE defects. Some of the defects that are noted on your report might not even appear on the buyer’s. Talk about a can o’ worms.

Other agents claim that a bad pest inspection can happen if you leave it up to the buyer to order it, meaning buyers can hire an inept company, and then the seller is stuck with that report. If the seller objects, the seller can then hire a different pest company and argue the results. Also, most buyer’s agents want to hire the best pest company, not the worst.

Home buyers are all over the board about things they would like fixed from inspections. It’s pretty much useless to try to pinpoint everything a buyer would like repaired or updated. Sellers certainly should not go out of their way to find things wrong with their house by obtaining seller inspections. That’s the buyer’s job.

I suppose the rationale of agents who like to order seller inspections on behalf of their sellers is the agents are unlikely to be held responsible for condition. Agents are only responsible to disclose what they see and what they know. Obtaining seller inspections seems overkill risk management to me, and exposes my sellers to a potential loss of profit.

If you’re looking for a strong listing agent who will work solely on your behalf, then call Sacramento Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub, a top Lyon broker-associate, at 916.233.6759. Weintraub will try to protect you from these disasters.