Which home inspection, and when
People ask whether they need a home inspection. The useful question is which one, and at what point. This is a plain-English reference to the 16 occasions on which somebody commissions one — what the standards actually require, what the report will and will not say, and why the window you choose decides how much the findings are worth.
The occasions people ask about most
Every page answers the same four questions: is this the ordinary inspection or something else, what does the standard actually require, what will the report say, and what do you do with it before the window closes.
One word, doing far too much work
A four-point for an insurer, a phase inspection during framing, a move-out condition record and a buyer's inspection have almost nothing in common except the noun. Only three of the 16 occasions here call for the ordinary product unmodified.
Buying a Property
From before you offer through to the final walk-through. What you find early is negotiable and what you find late usually is not, so the consequential decision is when, rather than whether.
Owning & Selling
Commissioned against a warranty deadline, an insurance policy, a tenancy or a fiduciary duty rather than a sale — which changes who the report is actually written for.
Every occasion, by when it happens
Before you offer
3 occasionsWhat you can learn before committing, and what it costs to learn it early.
Under contract
4 occasionsThe ordinary window, when the contingency is live and the findings still have leverage.
Before closing
2 occasionsThe last look, and the narrow set of things it can still catch.
While it is being built
1 occasionInspections that have to happen before the work they examine is covered up.
After you own it
4 occasionsInspections commissioned against a deadline, a policy, or a tenancy rather than a sale.
Before you sell
2 occasionsFinding out on your own terms, while you still control what happens next.
Every remedy in a property transaction has an expiry date
The option period. The inspection contingency. The builder's one-year workmanship warranty. The deposit statute's deadline for a move-out statement. Miss the date and the merits stop mattering.