Housing
This section of the BDN aims to help readers understand Maine’s housing crisis, the volatile real estate market and the public policy behind them. Read more Housing coverage here.
During Maine’s pandemic-era housing crunch when high demand and limited inventory caused property costs to skyrocket, many buyers chose to forego a home inspection before closing.
While this allowed buyers to get their hands on a new home faster, and potentially made them more appealing candidates to sellers, Peter Hatem, an attorney at Pine Tree Legal Assistance with more than 40 years of experience in real estate law, said it’s never a good idea to forgo a home inspection.
“A house is the most expensive thing that most people will buy,” Hatem said. “You want to know what expenses you may be confronted with when you go into it.”
During a home inspection, an inspector will visually assess the condition of the home. This includes an evaluation of the home’s structural integrity and the state of the property’s basic utilities, such as the water, septic and electrical systems.
“Those are all big ticket items if they fail and a good inspector will almost certainly flag those if they’re going to be a problem,” Hatem said.
The goal is to give the potential buyer an idea of what, if any, projects may be needed in the near future, such as if the building’s roof needs to be replaced soon or if there are already signs of water damage.
Home inspections can range from $300 to $500, the National Association of Realtors estimates. If the buyer chooses to have the inspection done, they are responsible for paying the cost. In some cases, a seller may choose to have their home inspected to see whether certain things should be repaired or replaced before putting it on the market.
Buying a home without an idea of its condition makes buyers vulnerable to surprise projects and expenses that they may not have set aside money to address, especially if they spent much of their savings on the home itself, Hatem said.
Inspections also protect the buyer if the seller knowingly withheld important information about a home.
“If there’s something the owner clearly knew about but didn’t disclose, the inspection could form the basis of either a later claim against them or renegotiating the contract,” Hatem said. “If a seller says the basement gets water in it only once a year if the inspector finds evidence of that happening every rain storm, then you know and you can decide whether you really want to buy that home.”
Knowing the condition of a home before closing also gives the buyer the ability to negotiate the cost to fix something — from a cracked foundation to a leaky roof — into the price of the property.
In Hatem’s work, he sometimes saw cases of a home inspection revealing improvements a previous owner never got local approval or permits for. This could be anything from finishing a basement to building an addition.
If a municipality discovers the unapproved work after the home changes hands, the new owner would be on the hook to correct the previous owner’s mistake or negligence, Hatem said.
“In most towns, it costs double to get approval after you’ve done the work,” he said. “It’s a good idea to get an inspection ahead of time.”
