Why would a contract have to state the obvious? That’s absurd. Instead your offers should state: “Seller beware. Although buyer is offering $XXX,XXX.xx for the property, buyer will make every effort to have any item in the house not in perfect condition restored to perfect condition, even if the condition of the item is obvious. Therefore, seller should assume that they will re-roof, re-paint (interior and exterior), re-carpet, and install new appliances (including water heater and furnace.)”

Ardell wrote: “The purchase and sale agreement comes to price and terms without regard to repairs.”

But the price is arrived at with regard to the condition of the property. If it isn’t, the buyer’s agent isn’t doing their job (I don’t know why I need to keep repeating that). If a buyer’s agent allows a client to make an offer on a home as if the roof is new, when it’s obviously old, that agent isn’t doing their job–representing their client.

I don’t know why you keep brining up P-I land. My thread there was a related topic, admittedly (and explicitly in the OP) brought about by this thread–whether the NWMLS should do away with STI status. There someone brought up points from this discussion, and I answered them there.

Also, I don’t know why you feel like you need to stay away from P-I land, or why you shouldn’t be contradicted here (or you shouldn’t contradict me in P-I land). A discussion doesn’t just involve one point of view. For example, in the STI thread I didn’t object to anyone saying STI needed to stay. And in fact, I’ve come to that conclusion myself, although I’d now prefer STI to be merged into Pending and perhaps called “Under Contract” as someone there suggested. That’s the point of having a discussion. To get different viewpoints.

You can’t be right on this until and unless there is a disclosure up front that says “obvious items are excluded from the home inspection; so please take special note of the obvious, and take those into account in your offer.”

You say: “What you’re missing (ARDELL) is that the condition of the roof should have been taken into account in the price agreed to.” You are stating your opinion, which I feel is to your buyer client’s disadvantage, as it is not the required course of action under the purchase and sale agreement.

The purchase and sale agreement comes to price and terms without regard to repairs. The repair negotiation is set aside to within x days of contract, usually 5-10 days, when due diligence and discovery are applied.

In a hot market you have to win the bid, to get the opportunity to discuss the house. Often you have not had time to inspect it thoroughly. In a slower market, people are applying more of their due diligence prior to offer.

When and how repair items or deferred maintenance items are addressed is determined by the written contract between the parties. The contract provides for that to be within the inspection timeframe.

For you to impose a standard that is contrary to the written agreement is not appropriate. If you want to add into YOUR contracts “ONLY latent defects will be entertained at time of inspection negotiation, so due your due diligence in advance of offer.” Then you can be correct. Until then, you are not.

OR, you can require that all buyers do a pre-inspection prior to offer and exclude the inspection contingency in its entirety. That’s another way to go. But to have an inspection phase, and then arbitrarily apply a standard not obvious by disclosure, or in writing by contract, is just plain…incorrect.

You can write a counter post on the PI and be absolutely correct on this I won’t come over there and correct you. But here, on my post in RCG…you just can win when we obviously don’t agree. We can reach the point of agreeing to disagree when you have your final word on this over on the PI. For this post, the final word is that an agent DOES NOT GET TO IMPOSE their personal beliefs regarding the darned roof absent language in the contract to support that belief.

I don’t think I’m saying that at all, unless the roof looks old and the inspector comes back and says it will need to be replaced in 5 years. I don’t think you can expect them to say anything better about a roof that looks old.

If they come back and says it needs to be replaced immediately, when that wasn’t obvious, that would be another matter.

Assume someone agrees to pay $400,000 on a house, thinking the roof has 5 more years, and that it will cost them $10,000 to replace the roof with a 25 year roof. Thus they’re planning on paying $410,000, and having a roof that will last a total of 30 years (5 on the old, 25 on the new). But the inspection (or lender) comes back and says the roof will need to be replaced.

Under your system the buyer would only have to pay $402,000 ($400,000 + 20% of $10,000) to have a roof that would last 25 years. That would be a windfall to them, because they’d be getting something for $2,000 they expected to pay $10,000 for. Under my system they’d have to pay $408,000. That would be a fair proposal for both parties, because the roof depreciates at $400 a year, and the seller would be compensating the buyer for the 5 years of life they expected, but didn’t get.

“that” came from Rich’s comment. But you and I were on opposite sides of an 80/20. If the roof is 80% worn out, then I would expect the seller to pay for that 80%. You seemed to think the exact opposite for some reason.

Here’s where I get my perspective.

1) In court if you destroy someones property, the plaintiff is limited to the value of the item at the time. So the buyer gets a roof with 20% life on it. The seller shouldn’t have to give him 20% of the value, as that IS its value at time of inspection. To get “a roof” with the house the buyer gets 80% from the seller in monetary compensation plus the 20% left on the roof equals 100%. House then comes with a roof on it.

2) Everything else is pro-rated. Taxes for the year as example: Seller pays for the time he lived in the house, buyer pays for the time he lives in it. So Seller should pay for the cost of the new roof only to the extent prior to the buyer owning it. If there it is a 20 year shingle with 18 years wear, then the buyer has the remaining two and pays for the remaining two and the seller pays for the 18 years of use.

I don’t know how you flipped that to seller paying for the 20% or 2 years left on it.

The answer at time of offer to “what about the roof”? is looks old, but let’s see what the inspector has to say about it. Not looks old so exclude it from the inspection negoitiations entirely.

The other bone of contention was whether or not a buyer should care at all about a seller once they’re under contract (and visa versa).

It had nothing to do with whether the roof should be patched or replaced. I don’t even know where that came from.

I think it comes down to whether someone would patch a leak on a 23 year old roof, or say “it’s time for a new roof”. Keeping it from leaking is or was the crieria for inspections for many years. Patch the leak. Now I do not think many people would patch a roof that was at the end of it’s life expectancy and leaking.