The Home Inspection Report is sometimes an unresolvable issue between Buyer and Seller. In our local Board forms for purchases, it is already agreed by signatures from both buyer and seller, that a major defect will void the contract and earnest money shall be returned to the buyer IF the two parties cannot agree to an acceptable credit amount for repairs or allowing the seller to fix the major defects or the buyer agreeing to waive the repairs and proceed to closing or even some combination of the above.

I had the unpleasant experience of a seller holding earnest money hostage from our buyer. The sellers attorney got involved and said just because a licensed home inspector says that he found several major defects that any of these are actually major defects. Gotta love the double talk. Anyways the seller wanted to keep the three thousand dollars of earnest money or claims my buyer risks the damages of 15% of of the purchase amount for breach of contract. This went on for a few weeks with three Bully letters from seller's attorney. I said absolutely not! We will NOT give the seller any earnest money because their was no breach of contract. The bully letters must of cost about $500 because now the Seller's Attorney said give us $500 and we will sign the mutual release of earnest money and walk away. I said why would you want to do that? If you have a case, why not sue for 15% of the purchase price and take your share that would be way more than a lousy $500. I had a good laugh right in his ear.

The way our Board forms are written, the buyer had to file a claim in small claims court. That is what he did.

After talking to the home inspector and told him the scenario of events, he said, " I have digital pictures of all the Major Defects that I discovered in that house" He sent me jpgs of all the major defects by email. I promptly forwarded the email to the seller's broker as a professional courtesy. One hour later I got a call that the Release of Earnest Money was signed and the attorney magically disappeared. Our buyer got his earnest money back the next day.

Moral of the Story. "A picture is worth a thousand words but a home inspectors picture may be worth thousands of dollars."

That is a good example of why you need to have digital photo's taken at inspections. I try to take as many picture as I can...however some defects do not photograph well.

Also, it is difficult to really define what a major defect is. Depending on clients financial situation some might think a $500 repair is a drop in the hat while others put their life savings into their downpayment and don't have a penny to spare.

The other week I had an inspection where the flatwork at the back of the home had cracked in half about an inch or better and settled toward the foundation. Now it really didn't look like much in the photograph and looking at it really didn't look like much either. But anytime you have flatwork draining water towards the foundation is never a good idea. Repairs I would guess would be at least $500 to repair. That's significant in my book, however the listing agent didn't agree and argued with me that it wasn't a significant defect. I try not to define "significant" in my reports as I feel that is up to the client to decide, but somehow I wrote those words and the listing agent was none too happy.

To what degree should a HI qualify a statement? $200, $500, $1k?
I don't believe what is significant in the HI's eyes matters. If it is something a HI feels unqualified for, a secondary inspection by a specialist should be recommended.

it happens all the time