Buying a home may be the largest investment you will ever make. Although the process is very exciting, it can quickly become overwhelming. When you make an offer on a home, it’s a good ideal to make your offer contingent on a home inspection, conducted by an independent authorized inspector. Most likely you will have to pay for the inspection yourself, but it could keep you from buying a house that will cost you far more in repairs down the road. The inspector should point out the defects or system inadequacies of the property. Often times this is when the seller is first notified of any problems. The inspection does not include cosmetic conditions. If you are satisfied with the results of the inspection, then your offer can proceed. If you are not, you may want to negotiate, asking the seller to pay for certain repairs or asking for a lower sales price. Your realtor is an expert at this and will help you with these decisions. Try not to be too emotional with the results of the property inspection, almost all properties need some repairs and maintenance.

Texas Real Estate Commission licensed inspectors are not code inspectors. The Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) has set the “Standards of Practice” that all TREC inspectors should adhere to. When constructing a property the builders adhere to the building codes in place at the time of construction. Local building codes change from year to year, as does the Standards of Practice. We as inspectors have to inspect the property as if it were built this year, following the current Standards of Practice. Keeping this in mind you can see why there are almost always some things reported as “in need of repair”. We at Clements Inspections will review the findings of the inspection in a thorough walk through with you one on one to help keep these findings in perspective. We urge you to attend the inspection, but if you or your Realtor can’t attend, we can also email the TREC and Termite reports to you or your Realtor on site.

No. A home inspection is an examination of the current condition of the property. It is not an appraisal or a Municipal Code inspection. The inspection will not pass or fail a property, but will simply describe its condition at the time of the inspection.