How To Make Sure Your Luxury Home Purchase Closes After Inspection

What To Expect When You’re Inspecting

Part of your luxury home purchase requires that you have the home inspected.  This may appear to be a small element or incidental to the purchase, however, this is exactly the area of your luxury home purchase that can go awry. The process involves the hiring of a home inspector to evaluate and inspect the condition of the property that you intend to purchase. While not affirmative in every purchase, after the inspection, there may be some elements of the home that the buyer, you, will want to have addressed and repaired.

The repairs can be handled in one of two ways:

• either the seller arranges for the repair(s) or
• the buyer is issued some form of credit.

Some repairs are more common than others, however, the word “reasonable” is key as anything that the buyer deems unreasonable or in excess can result in the loss of the home for a buyer making excessive and “unreasonable” requests.

The Inspection Process

Retain an experienced Luxury Home Real Estate Attorney

First things first, when purchasing a luxury home, you must ensure that you have an experienced attorney at your side to represent your interests and ensure that the process is as seamless as possible. Closing on a home can be extremely stressful, an attorney is your buffer during the course of the entire transaction.

Use Certified Home Inspectors

Your attorney can assist you in retaining an experienced inspector that will do a thorough and detailed inspection of the home leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the home is a viable purchase on your behalf.

Critical Systems Review 

While you may find issues with surface elements like wall blemishes or floor scuffs, asking to have areas such as these remedied prior to the purchase are minimal issues in relation to important systems in Florida such as Air Conditioning and Electricity.  If you intend on requesting repairs, it is absolutely reasonable that you require updates that involve safely operating the home such as:

• roofing,
• plumbing,
• electrical,
• air conditioning,
• gas,
• heating elements

These meet the reasonable expectation for repairs prior to your luxury home purchase and the seller should be willing to remedy such elements.

Pest Inspections

Another vital inspection that requires an experienced licensed professional is a Pest Inspection. As beautiful as South Florida is, an unkept property, no matter how luxurious it appears to be on the surface, may in fact have a pest problem. It is vital to you, your family, and your well being that an inspection clears the property of pests like:

• termites,
• ants,
• rodents
• roaches

It is important to address any infestations before purchasing the home.

Assurance That Safety Concerns Are Addressed And Corrected

As previously mentioned, you do not want to reach a point in the deal that you are asking for continued repairs, however, you cannot purchase a home that is not safe. In most cases, a luxury home will not require the same in-depth repairs as that of a typical residential home but you still want to ensure that all of the critical systems are running well and are safe. 

Using a gas tank that may have a leak versus a missing smoke alarm as examples, one is clearly more critical than the other though both are required for maximum safety. In the case of the latter, you may retain credit for the smoke alarm but require the seller to repair the gas leak. 

Disagreements

Disagreements during the course of a purchase are not uncommon and in most cases, any issue that arises can be fixed. In the case of cosmetic elements like a cabinet that appears to be coming unhinged or a slanted door, those elements can be easily fixed but may cause the buyer additional stress and legwork while they attempt to address any critical list items. 

Choose your priorities wisely if you have found your ideal home and location as you will be competing with other buyers, many of which would buy the home as-is in terms of small cosmetic issues. 

Unreasonable Expectations

Real estate attorneys have seen the gambit on expectations during luxury home purchases, from expecting every room in the home to be-repainted, having a driveway repaved and finished floors, the key is not to trap yourself into a corner where another offer may end up being accepted. 

Making unreasonable demands on a seller who holds the market in their hands for both price and location can result in a buy gone bad. The ultimate goal of any request that you make is that it stays within a reasonable realm and addresses the quality of life and safety issues that are the most important of your concerns. Creating a lengthy list of “minor” repairs can end up pushing your seller towards another buyer. 

Get Help With Your Luxury Home Purchase Today

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you during your South Florida Luxury Home Purchase. We are here to help.