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Thanks, Spider - you made my point. If I am there when you test something and it fails, there is absolutely no reason for me to suspect anything - no deliberate sabotage and no irresponsible action resulting in failure. No, no one should suspect it would happen anyway, but if the seller SEES what you test and how, there can be no question. My point is made. I need to be there.
GuyFriendly, I'm sorry, but from reading your posts here and on various threads, I wonder if you will really be able to go out in the yard, say, or stay in another room from wherever the inspector and buyers and their agent are, and let the inspector work and not try to educate him about how to do his job "better". You say you are there to provide information, but the inspector does not (and should not) NEED any information from you - in fact, it's better that he not have it. The inspection is supposed to be done by an independent third party looking at the house, not a party getting information from the seller about the house - that last is part of whatever disclosure laws your state has that apply to the seller.
Can you really in all honesty tell me that you can sit there and not speak unless spoken to by the inspector, and that you will not be trying to educate the buyers (and any agents present) at the same time about how things should REALLY be done? Can you refrain from following the inspector around to supervise how he does his job?
Can you honestly say that you can do that? If you think you can, go ask your spouse and your co-workers if THEY honestly think you can do those things. If you, and everybody who deals with you on a regular basis, thinks you can commit to that and stick to it, then maybe you won't risk blowing the deal by insisting on being at the inspection. Otherwise, you might want to re-think.
Thanks, Spider - you made my point. If I am there when you test something and it fails, there is absolutely no reason for me to suspect anything - no deliberate sabotage and no irresponsible action resulting in failure. No, no one should suspect it would happen anyway, but if the seller SEES what you test and how, there can be no question. My point is made. I need to be there.
Actually, Spider didn't. Why do you think the inspector might deliberately sabotage anything in your home? What's in it for the inspector? Besides no gain I can think of, the inspector is then at high risk of never getting another job.
I think the negatives of you following the inspector and buyer around out way any possible benefit.
Thanks HorseLady. If you have read my posts here, you know I am a different sort of person. Yes, I can be quiet - and will. But if they ask, as did the appraiser, if the carpet is new, I can tell them. If they ask when the heat pumps were last serviced, I can tell them. If they ask for warranty info, I have it for everything in the house. If they ask anything, I can answer it because I designed and had built this house and am the sole owner. Whether it works for me or against me, I will be honest. That is the most important aspect of life outside of the Golden Rule - honesty.
No offense meant to anyone here, but I have learned over the years not to trust people beyond a certain point. No, I am not a paranoid and I certainly don't expect problems, but if I can avoid them by a simple action like being there, I will do that. Not everyone is honest.
I do find the RE process to be one of the most difficult of any I ever encountered and perhaps 50% of the agents with whom I have communicated I would neither hire nor trust in my home alone. People here may not like that, but it is the truth. Aggressive and "know-it-all" is almost a prerequisite, it seems. Several I found to be dishonest by my (my mother's actually) definition: "anything told with the intent to deceive is a lie."
Another reason for me to watch is to learn what they look at. When I buy, I will be more informed having seen the process first hand.
RE agents seem to want the seller to remain in the dark as much as possible. In my experience, when someone wants to keep things from you, there is dishonesty or insecurity behind it. I haven't been on this earth 6 decades and learned nothing.
It is generally a much better idea to trust the agents to "babysit" the house while the inspector is going through their checklist. Most inspectors I have watched just do not interact with the buyer or the agents much at all. Maybe the last 15 minutes or so they will kinda give a "highlights" summary so that the details coming in the report are in some context. The agent's role is MOSTLY to keep the buyer from having an anxiety attack. When the inspector turns out to be a "Oh this is really bad" type drama hog that gets REALLY hard.
I would be really worried that a SELLER could also cause things to blow up badly. Even the most fair inspectors will find a few things that the MOST UNDERSTANDING seller almost certainly would say "you gotta be kidding me" -- the skills of an experience agent to help the BUYER put the proper amount of PERSPECTIVE on these things cannot be over emphasized.
For goodness sake if the agent(s) cannot be present and the seller feels he must, I would certainly hope that seller has a nice iPod and good headphones to just "chill out" or maybe watch TV the same way. Or maybe use the internet to post messages and stay totally absorbed / out of the "conflict zone"...
All I can say is.. thank goodness I didn't buy any of my houses from a seller who thinks like GuyFriendly!
All my inspections went off without a hitch, I got excellent information from my home inspector, and none of it with the discomfort of a seller hovering nearby trying to "learn" from my home inspection! Ugh!
Thanks HorseLady. If you have read my posts here, you know I am a different sort of person. Yes, I can be quiet - and will. But if they ask, as did the appraiser, if the carpet is new, I can tell them. If they ask when the heat pumps were last serviced, I can tell them. If they ask for warranty info, I have it for everything in the house. If they ask anything, I can answer it because I designed and had built this house and am the sole owner. Whether it works for me or against me, I will be honest. That is the most important aspect of life outside of the Golden Rule - honesty.
No offense meant to anyone here, but I have learned over the years not to trust people beyond a certain point. No, I am not a paranoid and I certainly don't expect problems, but if I can avoid them by a simple action like being there, I will do that. Not everyone is honest.
I do find the RE process to be one of the most difficult of any I ever encountered and perhaps 50% of the agents with whom I have communicated I would neither hire nor trust in my home alone. People here may not like that, but it is the truth. Aggressive and "know-it-all" is almost a prerequisite, it seems. Several I found to be dishonest by my (my mother's actually) definition: "anything told with the intent to deceive is a lie."
Another reason for me to watch is to learn what they look at. When I buy, I will be more informed having seen the process first hand.
RE agents seem to want the seller to remain in the dark as much as possible. In my experience, when someone wants to keep things from you, there is dishonesty or insecurity behind it. I haven't been on this earth 6 decades and learned nothing.
The inspector is an entirely different thing from the appraiser, just so you know. And I've had ONE occasion where the inspector had a question for the seller (where a particular connection was located, because it was not in any of the normal places) and a quick phone call took care of that.
You missed that you should NOT be giving information to the inspector because it is supposed to be an independent third party inspection that you are not, as the seller, influencing in any way, shape or form. A competent inspector is going to be able to tell things about your house without you giving him the verbal guided tour of all the things you did to it. If it's there, he should be able to inspect it.
Did you ask your spouse and friends and people you work with if you'd be able to do that, by the way? I'm almost willing to bet that you'd get a different answer from them. Also, it's not just being quiet - it's staying out of the way, in a different room, preferably out in the yard, not supervising. (Unless, of course, you're a licensed and trained and experienced home inspector yourself, in which case that might just barely be a good idea.)
By the way (and I'm married to this attitude and gave birth to it, so it's not like I don't really really like people who think this way), just because something's not being done the way you would do it doesn't mean that it's not being done right.
Incidentally, I'm not at all about keeping the seller in the dark - if anything, I have to remind myself not to give my clients more information than they want, sometimes, because I'm all about every member of the team (and it is a team when I do it) having all the information they need to get the goal accomplished. But I'm also aware that sometimes sellers get so anxious and controlling that they do themselves a disservice,a nd it is part of the real estate agent's job (just as it's part of an attorney's job - I used to be a legal assistant and observed this often) to keep that from happening. Thus the recommendation to double check your ability to butt out with those who know you best.
All I can say is "if you have nothing to hide, then what is your problem with me being there?"
There seems to be an incredible amount of paranoia here.
Not paranoia, just good advice from experience. Keep in mind that the buyer can still cancel the purchase with no penalty during the inspection phase. If the buyer becomes uncomfortable with the inspection due to your presence, that may influence them to err on the side of caution and back out rather than move forward.
Our advice here is meant to help you keep your sale moving forward, without doing something that may sabotage it.
just because something's not being done the way you would do it doesn't mean that it's not being done right.
Great advice for everyone here who disagrees with me, too.
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If you, and everybody who deals with you on a regular basis, thinks you can commit to that and stick to it, then maybe you won't risk blowing the deal by insisting on being at the inspection. Otherwise, you might want to re-think.
), just because something's not being done the way you would do it doesn't mean that it's not being done right. 
