Now that you’ve received an accepted offer for your new home, your two most important tasks are depositing the earnest money with the title company and scheduling your inspection.
If you have a home inspector, contact them now. If you do not, we can provide a few options! You are always more than welcome to utilize your own company, these are just inspectors we’ve personally used in the past. They will need the address of the property, the sellers contact information, and the date the inspection needs to be completed by. Your request for any repairs needs to be prior to the expiration of your inspection period, which means the inspection itself needs to be prior to that, essentially, the sooner the better.
Once you receive your report, carefully review the report to decide how to move forward from here. There are a few options; you can reject the property condition and cancel the sale entirely. Make sure to give notice to all parties involved (title, lender, and seller), you can accept the property as-is and request no repairs (this completes the inspection period and you can no longer cancel due to the inspection contingency) or you can request repairs that are important to you to be completed prior to close. You will present those requested items to the seller within that inspection period (usually 10 days), the seller then has 5 days to reply with what they’re willing to repair. If they agree to everything, this concludes the inspection period. If they reply to none or only some of the repairs, you now have 5 days to agree to move forward or to cancel the transaction and have the earnest money refunded.
Once repairs are complete, it is always a good idea to request receipt or proof of repairs completed to help ensure a smooth final walkthrough.