Adventures in Home Buying

How To Verify Home Repairs Before Closing

• Jim Troth

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Deals fall apart when “finished” repairs aren’t finished at all. We open with a return visit to a house where the thermostat read 50 degrees, the furnace cabinet was open, and parts were sitting on the panel—proof that someone was “working on it” without telling anyone. From there we unpack the bigger pattern: fake receipts, bogus license numbers, sloppy DIY patches like gutter downspout stuck over a plumbing vent, and window trim “fixed” with squishy caulk instead of wood and proper filler. It’s more than frustration; it’s risk that buyers inherit the day they close.

We walk through a practical playbook for making repairs real. Choose the contractors yourself or negotiate escrow so funds pay for quality work after closing. Demand documentation that can be verified: legitimate license numbers, itemized scope of work, and photos before and after. Test function, not just looks—heat that actually heats, GFCIs that trip and reset, drains that run fast without gurgles. When repairs can’t be tested, they aren’t done. And if a recheck is needed, set clear expectations: inspectors’ time is limited, so return visits should be scheduled, targeted, and fairly compensated—ideally by the party who wasn’t ready.

We also break down incentives. Most players in a transaction get paid only if the deal closes, which can tilt priorities. Inspectors and appraisers have no commission at stake, so their value is objective verification. That’s why trust belongs with the people who are paid to be thorough, not fast. By writing specific, measurable repair terms into your contract, insisting on credible proof-of-work, and using escrow or buyer-selected contractors, you can protect your budget and your sanity.

Subscribe for more straight talk on inspections, real repairs, and smarter closings. If you learned something helpful, share this with a friend and leave a quick review—what’s the worst “repair” you’ve ever seen?

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SPEAKER_01:

Alright. I'm a little frustrated today.

SPEAKER_03:

What's that, honey?

SPEAKER_01:

Alright, we did an inspection. And one of our inspectors did the inspection. The gas was off of the place. So of course, then the agent wants us to go back out to finish the inspection. Which makes sense. I'm sorry, we finished the inspection. It's not our house. The f house wasn't ready. So anyway, so we go back. I go up back out there because they have a they now have batteries in the thermostat.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, they did have batteries? That was so nice of them.

SPEAKER_01:

And the gas is actually on now. I'm assuming something was not right because you're frustrated. Well I get there. First I go I go to the thermostat. Thermostat says it's 50 degrees in here. I turn on, I turn up the temp, check the temperature. Nope, it's set at 70. You're like, okay, that's a problem. This is not working. So I go downstairs to the basement, and there's the furnace. Cabinet door is completely open, and a part for the furnace is just sitting on the cabinet door. Oh, that's not laying on the floor. So at some point they're getting it worked on, getting it fixed, but they totally ignore to tell us that it's not ready. Do not come out.

SPEAKER_03:

To do the inspection, don't come out.

SPEAKER_01:

So, which now I did I was able to do the water here. Yes, water here is working. But why why would we not come out when it's all done? Yeah, so my question is like, all right, say you bought a house and you had a request or remedy, which is awesome. You have to after you have this back, you got the request remedy, you you want, hey, I want you guys that get this fixed. This wasn't working right, or there's there's a little issue with it, and they can fix it. How do you know it was done correctly? Because how many times have we gone back out to do checks and it wasn't fixed right? Nine out of ten. It's most of the time, yes. And then I remember one house, all right, your plumbing vent. It's supposed to stick out out of the roof, and what the plumbing vent does is help your sewer line and your drain lines just run smoothly, and and those sewer gases can escape out the top and everything can drain quickly because you don't have a pressure, pressure buildup or negative pressure, everything event. Well, those things here in Ohio, those things are supposed to stick up about six inches above the roof if they go to the roof. That way you don't have snow blocking them. Makes sense to me. Perfect sense, yes. So the request I know they had was hey, we we need this extended. Doesn't get doesn't get blocked. Oh god, this is gonna be bad. I get there, and what the homeowner did, the seller, to extend, he took just a piece of gutter downspout and just sat over top of it. It's not even secured, not even the right material. I mean, it would work a little bit, but it's not even secured. It's just pure laziness when you could have gotten another small piece of pipe, maybe do a Fernco connection to it, do that, do a hose clamp, hose clamp it on, and be done. Too lazy. He wouldn't have got a gutter piece and laid it up on there.

SPEAKER_02:

That's just pathetic. Like genuinely, that's just pathetic.

SPEAKER_01:

And then we have had I think it was an electrician who's supposed to do some, we had electrical issues, there's a lot of electrical issues at houses, especially older houses. Not uncommon. It's all repairable. We got a receipt sent to us showing that it was fixed. You looked that receipt up.

SPEAKER_03:

Something wasn't right about that whole scenario to me, and they had a license on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Was this the one that's written on like just yellow notebook, notepad paper?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it was something there was something, it's been a couple years.

SPEAKER_01:

Very non-professional.

SPEAKER_03:

I I'm like, something's just not right. So I pull up that license number that didn't exist in the state, pull up the name that was on it, they're not licensed. So it was a completely fake receipt. And that's not the first time we've had that happen where we've gotten fake receipts.

SPEAKER_01:

So the question is, then how do you really know if you have a request for memory, how do you know the work is actually being done right? How do you know that that it's just well I know the the first example gave you how it was just some homeowner just half-assing it? I'll I'll slip a downs, just slap a down spout over top of the pipe and call it good. You don't really, or I've seen I've seen homeowner repairs where the window trim outside the house rotted. The whole and I look at it. Well, here's what I did. I look at it, I'm looking at the doing that's right, it's like really, it's different. Something's not right. My spidey sense is going off, it's not right. Something's odd, something's off over here. I go and touch it. That whole like bottom four inches of the of the windowsill, like trim, solid caulking.

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_01:

So like you couldn't even use wood putty. You couldn't even, yeah. You couldn't even dig out all the rotten spot, shove some wood putty in there. That would have at least been a better idea. Give it a day to harden and then paint it. You couldn't just you had to go just go get some bunch of big tubes of silicone caulk and just squirt it in there, and then it's all wavy and spongy. Probably still got a leak back there because.

SPEAKER_03:

That's gonna work well.

SPEAKER_01:

So how do you know?

SPEAKER_03:

You don't. The only way that you know would be to have somebody come back out and look at everything.

SPEAKER_01:

See, and and home inspectors typically don't want to go back out.

SPEAKER_03:

No, because well, and like how many times have we gone back out and literally stuff wasn't done right? Or we were told that the gas was on, or that this was on, or that was on, and that this was fixed, and most of it's not.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's a waste of inspector's time. Because for us, we're not gonna lose give up a time slot that could be done for a whole house inspection and termine and a radon test. We're gonna we're not gonna give up that whole time slot to come take a look at something that really should only take us less than an hour to check your your list is fixed. And we and we need to get paid for this time as well. Right. I mean, typically we will go out to a house once to take a look at it.

SPEAKER_03:

And then that next time is a fee.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking we almost need to just always charge a fee. What because the seller knows we're coming out. The seller knows they shouldn't get their house ready.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I don't think the client should have to pay for that. And we've had this discussion before. I I think it should be the seller. If you don't have your house ready to go and we have to come back out for any reason, there is a return trip fee.

SPEAKER_01:

Especially if it if we're gonna have the electricity's off, gas is off, you know things are not repaired yet, but you know you need to have these things ready for the inspection.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, it's not like hey, we go to the house, we discover there's you have a leak in your attic space, which you I I legit sellers would probably would not know if they didn't go in their attic. I wouldn't, I wouldn't expect them to know that. But 100% they should know they can easily tell, like, hey, I have no batteries in my thermostat. I got the cover off my my my furnace. I know it's not working. I haven't had gas or electricity on this place for two months.

SPEAKER_03:

Plumbing hasn't been used in two years. There wasn't a little old grandma, there just wasn't anybody living here, so yeah, go ahead and test that out too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so you how you know it was done correctly. So, what you need to do, if you have your request remedy, request that your contractors that you know go out and do the work.

SPEAKER_03:

That would be the best way to do it.

SPEAKER_01:

Do not do not go, yeah, yeah, I'll let the seller pick the person to fix it, or the seller says he's pretty handy, he'll do it.

SPEAKER_03:

Because the seller did such a great job with all of the stuff before that we found during the inspection.

SPEAKER_01:

Correct, correct. No, I have had, I'll be honest, I do this. I was at a home inspection, um, testing some outlets, GFCI outlet did not did not work. Okay. Seller was there. He was an electrician because I saw all the tools. I go, hey, just you know, you got one GFC that's not tripping. He goes, like, oh, you you is okay if I change it? Yeah, go and change it. Let me know what's done, I'll come back and retest it. No problem. It works fine. He's an electric yeah, he's an electrician.

SPEAKER_03:

He knows.

SPEAKER_01:

All the evidence was that he is an electrician, and he and it was working correctly. He's done. So that's cool. I have no problem with that. But most homeowners are not electricians, plumbers, and they would take care of their house if they if they well, ideally, they would take care of their own house. Yeah, but you know how the cobbler, the cobbler's children have no shoes.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So, yeah, how do you know? I mean, you could hire the home inspector to go back out, and and the home inspector should charge you for that because their time is is valuable.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

They're protecting you, yeah. But the best thing really is to get receipts from a contractor that you pick. So we have seen fake receipts. Yes, fake license numbers, fake companies, fake everything.

SPEAKER_03:

I I think it's a better idea if you pick the people that do the repairs. Now, obviously, don't have your people gouge the seller because that's not going to work. Have it be a fair market value for their services or have them put it into escrow as part of the contract negotiations, and then you go ahead and you get whatever fixed off of the escrow money and the seller gets whatever's left over. I mean, there's there's a couple ways to do it, but yeah, you you some of this stuff we've seen is amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, so ideally you can totally trust people, but you can't. No, you can't. You can't. I mean, some you gotta have a good relationship with somebody to to trust them. But yeah, this is I mean, it's real estate, there's money involved.

SPEAKER_03:

Anytime there's money, that's one of the motivators.

SPEAKER_01:

Some people do not get paid unless unless the house closes, so you've more of a factor to take into consideration is whether or not they're gonna care if things are done correctly.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, and in this whole real estate transaction, literally the only people involved in the real estate transaction that it doesn't matter to are the home inspectors and the appraisers. They have no skin in the game as to whether or not that house sells. They go out, they do their appraisal, call it good. We go, we do our inspection, and that's it. It is what it is for for both of those types of companies.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03:

Beyond that, everybody else involved in that transaction stands to make money from it.

SPEAKER_01:

And and the inspection company makes money as long as they do an inspection and they do it extremely accurate for the client. Because the client could come after the inspector if they screw things up. Now, here in Ohio, that is limited to the price of the home inspection, but still they want to make they they need they want to make that money and they want to keep it. And the way to keep it is do a thorough job and honest. Right. Where the where the other professions, I'm not saying people are dishonest, but they they have no skin in the game if if uh if if they're they're wrong on a couple of things, or the house has issues, if that if the person moves in the house has a bad sewer line, doesn't affect their agent any. They already got their praiser, Annie. It doesn't affect them, doesn't affect the loan officer any. Bank bank don't care. You still owe you still owe it.

SPEAKER_03:

So you still owe that mortgage.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So when you have a home inspection, first of all, you must have a home inspection done, and then you really, really should have the sewer line checked. Always get that scope. Yes. So I think I I think I was just on this one, but trust the home inspector. But I'd be honest, we do not want to go out and do rechecks again. No, I know. It's not worth the time.

SPEAKER_03:

No, it's not. And then we've agents been lied to so many times.

SPEAKER_01:

I've had agents get mad at us because the things weren't done, weren't fixed, right?

SPEAKER_03:

I'm like, don't it's not our job. We didn't fix it in the first place.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm just I'm just telling you, we're reporting what it is. I didn't, I'm not killing the deal. The house is committing suicide. We're just reporting how badly the the seller took care of the place, right? That's the facts. All right, thank you, everybody. Bye guys, bye bye.

Contributor

Jim Troth

Host
Contributor

Laura Troth

Host