Okay, so you’ve finished negotiating a reasonable contract and now, you’re just finishing up the home inspection. There is a list of eight items that need to be repaired. Who’s going to do it?

Let’s say the gas furnace burners and air handler have soot and show evidence of not being cleaned for awhile. This one’s easy. it will take a heating contractor to come in service the unit. Receipt to be provided at closing. 

The faucets have a slow drip, Seller want s to fix it.

Three outlets have reversed polarity, not a difficult problem to fix. The Seller says “no problem; I can take care of that”. There is one over-fused breaker in the electric panel. Again, Seller says, “I can fix that too while I’m at it.” Seller goodwill is important. You know that he has fixed some things around the property in getting ready to list it, as a Buyer Agent, are you going to encourage your client to go along with it? 

Finally, three windows have failed balance springs and the windows won’t stay up on their own. Seller says, “I fixed three others. I will take care of these also.”

Here’s what was agreed to:

• Seller agreed to have the furnace serviced. It turned that the heat exchanger had several cracks and was replaced for $1,200.

• We agreed to let the Seller fix the slow drips. I didn’t need to be a plumber to see if it was still leaking.

• Correcting reversed polarity is fairly easy and can be verified with a $5 outlet checker from Home Depot. Evaluating the repair at the panel is an entirely different matter and also a potential fire hazard. The Seller had a licensed electrician come and do both items.

• The window repair ended up to be the most contentious. My Buyer Client was ready to let the Seller do the repair until I showed him how the other three windows were repaired: There is usually a pliable tin-like metal cover over the balance spring on each side of the window. If you take a pair of pliers and crimp it in two or three places, depending on the overall weight of the window, you can, in fact, repair it for a short while. The crimp substitutes for what the balance spring is supposed to do and, the window will stay up for awhile; certainly for as long as needed for an inspection or walk-through. As you might suspect, after awhile, the weight of the window will work through the crimp and, the window will return to its unsafe condition.

This was the repair the Seller had completed on the other three windows and, he was most unpleasant when I explained that the short-term repair was not in my client’s best interest. It cost $450 dollars for the repair.

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Would you have done anything different? How do you handle the grey area repairs that may or may not require a licensed or certified technician? Any examples of anything that nearly blew up a deal?