The Inspection Report Belongs To The *BUYER* Not The seller!

It's always suggested to my sellers to completely vanish while their home is being inspected. This is the perfect opportunity for the buyers to visit with their chosen inspector to discuss issues with the home, review the report and try and understand what's right and wrong with the functionality of the house.

Sellers shouldn't be home. Nor should they hide behind bushes to listen. The absolute worse thing a seller can do is show their impatience by picking the inspectors brain for information.

LOUD & CLEAR: The home inspector does not work for the seller, listing agent, buyers agent, bank, loan officer, city, or government. The Inspector is ONLY allowed to provide a report to the BUYER. The buyer usually grants permission to the Inspector to share the report to their buyers agent so that negotiations can be made about its findings.

If the buyer asks for no repairs or credits from the seller then they are under NO obligation to provide a report to the seller. It doesn't matter that the seller owns the home.

Recently a listing agent called me and said her seller made it a point to confront the inspector "while the inspection was taking place to discuss the findings." The Inspector was polite and told him not to worry and that everything should be okay, but he couldn't go over the findings because he wasn't quite done yet.

At the end of the inspection the seller stood in the yard, chatted with the buyers, acted nice and mostly was an enormous nuisance, pain in the butt home owner who did nothing but complicate matters. Today I fired off an amendment on behalf of my buyers asking for 9 things to be repaired by the seller. The seller jolted his Listing Agent in disgust citing that the Inspector said.. "Everything Would Be Okay."

1. It didn't matter what the Inspector said to the seller. The Inspector reports to the buyer in writing, when finished what the findings are. It's up to the buyer to decided (usually later than during the actual inspection) on what needs to be repaired.

2. The seller should LISTEN to the advice of his Listing Agent and NOT BE HOME during inspections.

A seller gets no contractual advantage or negotiated bonus by being home and poking the Inspector for information. If anything, the seller is doing nothing but potentially poisoning his own real estate transaction. You can't control every aspect of a real estate transaction. You have to let people and situations PLAY OUT. You have to exercise restraint, patience and understanding.