The Home Inspection

Buyers and lenders will normally insist on various "home inspections", including but not limited to, soil, foundation, electrical, structural, heating/cooling, appliance, plumbing, roof, pest/termite and swimming pool inspections.

Most of these inspections will be taken care of all at once by a "home inspector" service. The inspector will come to the house, and spend time looking at everything in order to make a detailed report, which will be submitted to the Buyer (a copy should be furnished to Seller). Defects may be revealed that were unknown to the Seller and/or not included in a "Seller’s Disclaimer Statement".

At this point, the Buyer and Seller will be armed with sufficient knowledge to make final negotiations on the sale price or repairs required on the house, or Buyer may decide that too many problems have been revealed and decide to get out of the deal, recovering any deposited earnest money.

"As-is"
"As-is", relates to the condition of property. If something is sold "as is", it means that it is being sold with all defects, whether apparent or hidden, and the Buyer cannot claim afterwards that defects were concealed from the Buyer. When purchasing something "as-is", the Buyer is taking the risk that there may be something seriously wrong with the item or property, but is buying it anyway-- usually because it is such a good deal, or the buyer is unwilling to pay the price for a professional inspection.