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You make sellers bring their house up to current code? That wouldn't fly in my area. Houses are sold based on code the house was built to. If codes change over the years, that's up to the individual to update their home if they deem it's necessary. Sellers are not expected to GFCI their homes, or put drip pans under their water heaters, or completely rewire their house for the new ARC fault system. That's unrealistic and many sellers wouldn't be able to sell if everything had to be brought to current code, especially since codes change several times a year and who is supposed to keep up with that except the home inspector?
Ooh, we had one of those this month. Older house. We represented the seller. Buyer had an inspection and asked for all sorts of things to be fixed "per code" (mostly plumbing/electrical related, like the aforementioned GFCIs) . We informed them that everything on their list was "per code" for what the code was when the house was built and the seller was not going to bring everything up to current code (thousands of $$ worth). The buyer accepted that and stayed in the deal.
Lack of GFCI in kitchens/bathrooms or outside is a safety hazard as are two prong outlets with grounded appliances (with the ground removed) crammed into them or extensive extension cords. So yes, as part of my fiduciary duty to clients, I recommend that my clients have the seller get that corrected (or have the seller contribute that amount to closings costs after submitting an estimate). In Maine we have a lot of radon in the air and water and roughly 10% or our wells exceed the recommended level of arsenic. Those can be fixed, but they are costly. Most sellers comply, very few want to sell a house that is unsafe. Even if the buyers don't care about a specific safety hazard, I ask them to think about what might happen in 10 years when they sell the house and the new buyer agent has his/her client request those repairs (when they will no doubt be more expensive). Many issues date back one or two owners due to the lack of inspections or the buyer not getting the advice they should have gotten from a good buyer agent.
You make sellers bring their house up to current code? That wouldn't fly in my area. Houses are sold based on code the house was built to. If codes change over the years, that's up to the individual to update their home if they deem it's necessary. Sellers are not expected to GFCI their homes, or put drip pans under their water heaters, or completely rewire their house for the new ARC fault system. That's unrealistic and many sellers wouldn't be able to sell if everything had to be brought to current code, especially since codes change several times a year and who is supposed to keep up with that except the home inspector?
Really? I'm in your area and I see it happen all the time. If there's a safety issue (GFCI is one case, water heater needing to be raised to 18" to meet current safety codes so you don't blow up the house, outdated but code at the time electric panel that's likely to set the house on fire, things like that), bringing the house to code is frequently requested by the buyers and done by the seller. Now, many things aren't brought up to code because they don't actually impact safety to any great degree, but many are.
Completely rewiring the house is not common, but it's not unheard of - we had it done ourselves, in fact, when we purchased the house on the ranch that was built early in the last century, and the electrician came down from the attic shaking his head at what he found up there. ("All those wires that are supposed to be different colors? They're all black. That probably has to do with half the outlets in the house being reverse polarity.")
In other words, there's "up to code" and then there's "up to code". Depending on what it is and negotiations, it absolutely will and does fly in this area.
Lack of GFCI in kitchens/bathrooms or outside is a safety hazard as are two prong outlets with grounded appliances (with the ground removed) crammed into them or extensive extension cords. So yes, as part of my fiduciary duty to clients, I recommend that my clients have the seller get that corrected (or have the seller contribute that amount to closings costs after submitting an estimate). In Maine we have a lot of radon in the air and water and roughly 10% or our wells exceed the recommended level of arsenic. Those can be fixed, but they are costly. Most sellers comply, very few want to sell a house that is unsafe. Even if the buyers don't care about a specific safety hazard, I ask them to think about what might happen in 10 years when they sell the house and the new buyer agent has his/her client request those repairs (when they will no doubt be more expensive). Many issues date back one or two owners due to the lack of inspections or the buyer not getting the advice they should have gotten from a good buyer agent.
Gfci outlets cost what, $10 each? Maybe $50 for a whole house?
I'd call that "nit-picking" - you and your buyers have better things to do. Unless you're dealing with $4,000 homes, it's an insignificant and completely obvious thing. In the case of gfci's, you probably had at least forty-years of previous residents who managed to survive just fine without gfci outlets. For the record, a ground-fault outlet can kill you just as dead as a regular outlet if you do something stupid.
I can certainly understand pointing out the lack of gfci's on a walk-through, if you really think its a "safety" issue, but swapping three or four outlets is an easy & cheap DIY thing, not an undisclosed "zinger" that's going to bankrupt your vulnerable & simpleminded buyers.
I can understand a home inspector trying to justify their ( often excessive ) fee by nit-picking the smallest details, but even they often categorize & prioritize issues to keep things in perspective.
If you *really* want to exercise that "fiduciary responsibility" in a way that actually might help your buyers, how about going through the HUD-1 with your buyer line-by-line and pointing out all the junk fees from the title company? The last one I got had a fax fee, a courier fee, an email fee and postage on it. If even 2% of agents questioned those fees, they would disappear from everyone's closings in short order - but alas, the agent often selects a "friendly" title office, that brings donuts & coffee to the real-estate office every week. Don't want to bite the hand that bribes 'ya!
Gfci outlets cost what, $10 each? Maybe $50 for a whole house?
I'd call that "nit-picking" - you and your buyers have better things to do. Unless you're dealing with $4,000 homes, it's an insignificant and completely obvious thing. In the case of gfci's, you probably had at least forty-years of previous residents who managed to survive just fine without gfci outlets. For the record, a ground-fault outlet can kill you just as dead as a regular outlet if you do something stupid.
I can certainly understand pointing out the lack of gfci's on a walk-through, if you really think its a "safety" issue, but swapping three or four outlets is an easy & cheap DIY thing, not an undisclosed "zinger" that's going to bankrupt your vulnerable & simpleminded buyers.
I can understand a home inspector trying to justify their ( often excessive ) fee by nit-picking the smallest details, but even they often categorize & prioritize issues to keep things in perspective.
If you *really* want to exercise that "fiduciary responsibility" in a way that actually might help your buyers, how about going through the HUD-1 with your buyer line-by-line and pointing out all the junk fees from the title company? The last one I got had a fax fee, a courier fee, an email fee and postage on it. If even 2% of agents questioned those fees, they would disappear from everyone's closings in short order - but alas, the agent often selects a "friendly" title office, that brings donuts & coffee to the real-estate office every week. Don't want to bite the hand that bribes 'ya!
Call it what you want, but generally houses without GFCI also have other electrical issues such as reverse polarity, ungrounded or dead outlets, perhaps knob and tube, etc. Why not have an electrician go through the entire house to make sure it's safe?
In my state, on the buyer's side the title company charges one fee for all of it's services, one fee for lender's title insurance on the loan amount (mandatory), one fee for owner's title insurance (optional), fees for recording deeds and mortgages at the county registry and state transfer tax. And yes I do go over it with the buyer prior to closing, as does the title representative.
Sounds like OP wants the buyer to just buy house as is. If so he should be marketing it as-is. Otherwise people are going to expect that things which are defective get fixed and they are going to expect for the seller to pay for it. This is the norm. If you don't want to do it that way then sell it as-is. People are obviously going to then offer you less for your home. I would guess that its not going to pay as most buyers will subtract more for an as-is listing then it will cost you to fix the issues.
IMO, it is completely reasonable for the buyer to expect things which are broken to be fixed. Often the solution for the seller is to not fix it but to compensate the amount it will cost to get fixed. Our place had a few issues and we were compensated $1500 for them. Pretty much standard practice.
On home we just purchased we checked off Home Inspection which is binding.We have 14 days to get it done,Monday inspection will be done,no wording in contract to exclude repairs,if seller doesn't want to do them we get our deposit back.Depending on whether it is serious or not we have 3 days to submit repairs to seller.
On a Fannie Mae Home written into contract,no repairs.
Call it what you want, but generally houses without GFCI also have other electrical issues such as reverse polarity, ungrounded or dead outlets, perhaps knob and tube, etc. Why not have an electrician go through the entire house to make sure it's safe?
In my state, on the buyer's side the title company charges one fee for all of it's services, one fee for lender's title insurance on the loan amount (mandatory), one fee for owner's title insurance (optional), fees for recording deeds and mortgages at the county registry and state transfer tax. And yes I do go over it with the buyer prior to closing, as does the title representative.
So you're hiring an electrician and a house inspector? , or just using the inspector as an *excuse* to then try to rebuild an *old* house to new standards, on the seller's dime.
Knob & tube wiring is clearly on every disclosure statement I've ever seen. Its existence shouldn't be a surprise to your buyers.
As for dead outlets - seriously? You just made my point - outlets are a 35 CENT item.
I'm certain there are agents that get away with that kind of stupidity in a down market, but kinking a deal over a $.35 item isn't acting as a "fiduciary". It's being a self-important boob.
Frankly, by infantalizing your buyers, you're creating a monster that's likely to bite you in the behind later. Those buyers whom you've "trained" to expect all repairs & maintenance on someone else's dime are quite likely to come back and ask for "help" or accuse *you* of "misleading" them about any deal that doesn't turn out in their favor.
I was just reading a story about an appraiser who was sued because the appraisal he did (NINE years prior!) didn't mention a tree that was close to the roof. Nine years later, when the roof began leaking, the buyers decided it was all his fault, because he didn't tell them.
Buyers need to put on some "big boy pants" and warm up their checkbooks. The mortgage isn't their only housing expense. Maintenance and adult assembly *will* be required.
Call it what you want, but generally houses without GFCI also have other electrical issues such as reverse polarity, ungrounded or dead outlets, perhaps knob and tube, etc. Why not have an electrician go through the entire house to make sure it's safe?
In my state, on the buyer's side the title company charges one fee for all of it's services, one fee for lender's title insurance on the loan amount (mandatory), one fee for owner's title insurance (optional), fees for recording deeds and mortgages at the county registry and state transfer tax. And yes I do go over it with the buyer prior to closing, as does the title representative.
Yes, no GFCI can be a clue that there are other issues, which my preferred "nitpicking" inspector will detail and, if it appears necessary, recommend that we have a professional electrician look at it. Did that just this week, in fact, with a house that not only had no GFCI's, it had aluminum AND copper wiring and a few other things that really need to be dealt with. We didn't ask for all of it to be done, just the major safety issues (the GFCI's will be taken care of by the buyer in this case).
And, yes, I do go over all of the HUD 1 with my clients, as does the escrow officer, line by line. Got something changed just yesterday, in fact. One does not exclude the other; in fact, the attitude that even small inspection items are important to one's buyer tends to go hand in hand with going over the fees line by nitpicky line.
Yes, no GFCI can be a clue that there are other issues, which my preferred "nitpicking" inspector will detail and, if it appears necessary, recommend that we have a professional electrician look at it. Did that just this week, in fact, with a house that not only had no GFCI's, it had aluminum AND copper wiring and a few other things that really need to be dealt with. We didn't ask for all of it to be done, just the major safety issues (the GFCI's will be taken care of by the buyer in this case).
And, yes, I do go over all of the HUD 1 with my clients, as does the escrow officer, line by line. Got something changed just yesterday, in fact. One does not exclude the other; in fact, the attitude that even small inspection items are important to one's buyer tends to go hand in hand with going over the fees line by nitpicky line.
No gfci's isn't a "clue" to anything except that the house was built before they were required. In my area, the year built is in the listing info and the disclosure statement. I'd be much more concerned about tampering & cheesy repairs if I saw gfci's in a house that was too old for them.
As a seller, if I was given a demand for a list of inconsequential repairs and an inflated repair credit, I'd toss your offer in the trash. I wouldn't negotiate - you can't fix stupid, and I don't want to do business with anyone who is litigious or helpless, and nit-picking is a sign that the buyer is poorly represented, anal-retentive or ignorant.
However, I'd be willing to bet that if you're honest with yourself, if your agent, as the seller, was just as nitpicking representing your interests, you'd think they were wonderful.
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