Step 12: What is the Inspection Contigency Period?

To make your offer more attractive to sellers you can shorten the inspection period. Before we get into shortening though, let’s talk about the inspection period as a whole. As a buyer it is important that you do your due diligence by having all the inspections that may be needed (side sewer if in tacoma and septic if applies) completed. By default, you as the buyer have 10 days after mutual acceptance to have the inspection ordered and completed (again, we can handle scheduling it for you as well). This is important to have done when purchasing a home because you can ask the seller to fix items on the inspection report that come up, or ask for concessions at closing so you can fix the problems yourself. If you do not have a inspection completed during the default 10 day inspection period, then the inspection is deemed waived and the seller is not obligated to make any repairs or modifications.

Earlier we mentioned that you can make the inspection period shorter to make your offer more attractive. An example of this would be asking for a 3 day inspection instead of the default 10 days. It makes your offer more attractive because it shows your seriousness for wanting to move forward with this purchase. The faster you have the inspection completed, the faster the negotiations will go, thus getting any needed repairs done sooner, etc. It makes the whole process move forward faster which means the faster the seller gets their money and the faster you can be in your new home.

After the initial inspection is completed, you may notice that some additional inspections may need to be done. In that case you may have these inspections done on or before the end of the initial inspection period. You as the buyer have 5 days to complete the additional inspections after giving timely notice. You can also shorten this period if you feel it is needed, but 5 days is the default.

Now that we have the home inspection scheduled, there may be couple other inspections that need to take place!