In this case, the listing agent acknowledged it by responding that they're "declining" it.

Another point.

Everyone seems to be operating under the assumption that all inspection reports are created equal. There absolutely are not. Sure we have a SoP in Texas, but even with that there is so much latitude and experience differences. My average report on an older house is 50 to 70 pages. There are still old timers (even older than my 21 years) and maybe newbies who use a pencil to fill out a printout of the trec report and give a 8 page report. Both technically meet the standards requirement.

This is why one should never depend on someone else's inspector. Just like any contractor or professional you hire. You need to find one you think is good and you are confidant about. You have no idea what arranged was made with the report if it isn't yours (it is legal to depart from the standards if both parties agree.)

I believe in honest disclosure. But I absolutely disagree with weaponizing the inspection reports. Whether that is making **** up in the report or trying to coerce the seller by sending the full report for no reason. The report is for the buyers information. The inspector shouldn't care if they deal closes or not. His job is to give a realistic objective opinion of the property conditions at the time of inspection. Then the buyer and their agent decide if the conditions work for them and what they want to negotiate based on the new information and the original offer.

Except for truly hazardous things, why would anyone care about policing future disclosure in a house they decided not to buy? Obviously the governing bodies don't care, or there would be a better method of tracking things.

Absolute said:

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Except for truly hazardous things, why would anyone care about policing future disclosure in a house they decided not to buy?

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Because it allows them a chance to walk away and feel like they are still winning. Realtors tell their clients all kinds of stuff that would be best not said. "spend the money on inspections, you'll get it back in repairs", "the roof looks bad but we wont mention it in the offer, we'll ask for it after inspections."

Then, when the seller doesnt play ball, and the emotions get heated, the buyer and/ or agent feel like that's their only way to walk away but still "win".

We see it all the time on this forum. "that seller wasn't reasonable, we walked away and it sold for even less than our offer, see we won."

Some buyers, having learned through the inspection process that the seller's disclosures were materially & knowingly false, and after having spent hundreds to thousands in inspections and options fees, are justifiably peeved to learn that the seller not only is not willing to negotiate in good faith on legitimate issues "discovered", but intends to perpetrate the same fraud on the next buyer by pleading ignorance because they intend to dodge the inspection report(s). I don't think it's "weaponizing" or unmerited "policing" for buyer to expect seller and their agent to receive the full inspection report.

I get both sides of this. We definitely had a person who made a full price offer on one of our previous homes with no intention of actually paying it. We had like 8 offers on the house, and she made a full price offer with a 2-3week close. We couldnt say no. It was the best offer.

but…. She was a real estate agent, got her inspector to come and view our house, and then proceeded to make a offer at about 80% of her original offer, and then told us she'd make sure we'd have the list everything in the future if we didn't take her offer.

Some of the things she put as her reason for lowering the price were inherently obvious on a basic walk through (it was a 70 year old house) but her inspector worked us over pretty hard.

Still mad about it and if I see her in public, I'll give her a piece of mind politely because her intention from the beginning was to screw us over.

My belief though is that case is rare and when we have dodo, we would provide our buyers with past inspections on the house if there was one just to be clear we weren't hiding anything.

Things like this is why I don't handle residential any longer and just stick with land

Too many people think the Buyer agent took the proper action in sending the full inspection report to the Seller's agent. I don't think it is appropriate or being a good, ethical agent/broker to make it a habit of sending an inspection report to the Seller's agent unless the Buyer and Seller agents discuss this in advance and the Seller's agent agrees that sending the report would assist the parties in the transaction. Sending the report unsolicited under any other circumstance is really a passive aggressive act on the part of the Buyer's agent to get a leg up in negotiations - with the ultimate goal of damaging the Seller in the event the Seller doesn't agree to renegotiate the deal to the satisfaction of the Buyer. As a Buyer agent, treat the transaction as you would wish to be treated if you were the Seller agent - and vice versa.

What I typically try to highlight when asking for repairs is the 1,000 little things that came up in the report that we're not worried about, and that we're not attempting to nickel and dime the seller. In the end, it's up to the client but I always encouraged them to focus on the important items.

I don't see that as weaponizing an inspection report but opinions vary. If the listing agent wants to play some games about not opening the email, that's fine with me. I just care that we get the repairs done (or get compensated for them).

Ok, here is a real life example that I experienced this last summer while representing a buyer client.

First time buyer client puts a home under contract in the "starter" home category (meaning inspection costs, OM and EM costs, and closing costs are a lot more impactful to buyers in this price point than to those in the luxury segments). This home was in the $300k to $400k price range in Houston. Sellers disclosure is completely clean and left the age of the roof blank. My assumption is that unless what is stated on an SD is bad/wrong, don't believe it. We knew the HVAC system was older going in to it, but the client was willing to take that on as long as it was working properly now.

In between our initial showing and the inspection, the HVAC system goes out and we find out that it's R-22 and probably needs to be replaced as it's ~25 years old. Further, the inspector gauges that the roof is 20-25 years old, which means that it's not insurable and will need to be replaced if my client wants to get insurance for their mortgage. And finally, we find out that although the entire home has recently updated outlets, rockers, and fixtures, nothing is grounded (this is a fire hazard, and no electrician would have done this, meaning it was a DIY special). We went to the seller with an amendment that said we wanted the owner to provide a new roof, new HVAC system, and an electrical system that was properly grounded. He responded by asking for a number instead, so we asked for like $40,000, and he went ballistic, telling us how unreasonable we were being and so on. Oh, and during this time the seller magically found and produced his receipt for the last roof replacement that was like 25 years ago. The sellers agent made it clear that the seller was not going to give anything as "he had already come down during the negotiations" (this one always gets me), so we terminated. I provided the reports we had so that the seller could not hide from these to future prospective buyers like he did with us.

Fast forward about 6 weeks, the house is still for sale, and I get a call from another buyers agent. She asked me why we backed out, so I told her exactly why. I asked if the seller had provided the inspection reports and she said that she was told by the sellers agent that we backed out because we "got cold feet" and that they didn't have any reports. The sellers disclosure had not been updated in the 6 weeks since we terminated. None of that was a mistake, all of it is just plain fraud, and future buyers (likely first time homeowners) shouldn't have to pay thousands of dollars getting into a tar baby because a seller and their agent are liars. I'm going to try and treat people how I would want to be treated, and that includes future buyers.

Moral of the story:

• People will lie when money is on the line.
• If you are looking at a home that has previously been under contract, CALL THE BUYERS AGENT AND ASK WHY THEY TERMINATED.

Red Pear Realty said:

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If you are looking at a home that has previously been under contract, CALL THE BUYERS AGENT AND ASK WHY THEY TERMINATED.

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great advice. I'm always amazed more agents don't do this

I think you meant to respond to Jamie.

Because sometimes you don't have a choice. Also, that's your takeaway from that story?

Stand outside the open house with a free copy of the inspection report.

The fact so many inspection reports are a phonebook of ticky-tacky bull**** is why this is a bs tactic by the buyers agent. And without the conversation with the inspector, many items on that list can be tough to decipher for a future buyer or their agent as to whether they are a big deal or not. Again, ask for the concessions you want. Negotiate. Just sending the report in anticipation of putting the seller in a jackpot is bullsh. It's a bad faith tactic.

And fwiw, we sold our first house to a backup offer signed during the option period. Did that backup contract in hand influence my negotiation stance on repairs requested during the first contract's option period? You bet it did. No major issues and didn't play disclosure games, but I also was not going to play ball on the nonsense they wanted.

I see no issue with showing the house in this situation. The buyer has signaled coming for a big ask and they can walk. The seller would be silly not to still market their house