How Do You Handle the Home Inspection Request for Repairs?

 How Do You Handle the Home Inspection Request for Repairs?
                                                     
In the past 10 days, I have had three sales and that means three home inspections..2 were my listings and one for a buyer.. aka future seller. All three were handled quite differently!

There have many discussions about home inspections, who should attend, who should not attend, liability, who should be talking, who should be commenting..etc.

This discussion is how to respond the home inspection.

If you are the buyer's agent...how do you go about requesting needed repairs? Do you have a discussion with the buyers? Do you go over the report and decide what items are important to have corrected by the home owner? Do you discuss which items are normal maintenance, or normal upgrades that you would like to have addressed? Do you discuss what has to be an immediate repair and what can wait as a maintenance item? You know... like cleaning the gutters.

Or do you just take the entire report and ask that every single item, mentioned on the home inspection report, be corrected by the home owner?!

That's what happened to me. The inspection (my listing) lasted almost five hours but the agent did not get his report back for 7 days after the inspection. (He was in the time frame of the contract.) The entire report, as required, was attached with a brief statement to fix EVERYTHING listed on the report! Well not everything...only defective and marginal items!!

The Definitions explained on the report..
Defective-Item is either non-functional, a safety concern, a liability and will require Professional servicing to restore,repair or replace it.  Marginal-Item is in need of routine maintenance or minor repair work.

(Note about my other inspections... they were handled with the inspection request presented  (and resolved) within 2 days and each were spelled out what the buyer requested along with signatures.)

This is not a new home but one that has been beautifully maintained and shows pride of ownership. The report is 15 pages and describes the condition of the exterior, the roof, the electrical, plumbing, heating, air conditioning, the bathrooms, the kitchen and all the items that go into inspecting a home that is over 30 years old. Many of the inspector's comments were addressing upgrades and routine maintenance. Some noted that an item was older and to budget for replacement in the future.

I might add that we have a back up buyer.

How Do You Handle the Home Inspection Request for Repairs?