After a home inspection, the deal moves from looking at the house to negotiating over it. You read the report, decide which problems are worth raising, and submit a written request to the seller — usually within 10 to 17 days of contract acceptance. The seller can agree, counter, or refuse, and your contingency deadline controls how long you have to settle things or walk away without losing your deposit.
Read the Report and Sort What Matters
The inspector typically delivers a written report within 24 to 48 hours of the walkthrough. The report belongs to whoever paid for it, almost always you, and a standard inspection runs between $296 and $500 depending on the home’s size. Findings are usually grouped by category: structural concerns, safety hazards, mechanical systems, and cosmetic wear.
The report is not a list of demands. It describes the property’s condition and flags items outside normal standards. Your work during the review is to separate issues that genuinely matter — a cracked foundation, outdated wiring, an aging roof — from minor cosmetic flaws that will not affect value or safety. Overloading the seller with trivial items is one of the fastest ways to sour the negotiation.
Before you ask for anything, read the contingency clause in your purchase agreement. Most contracts distinguish material defects (issues affecting safety, structural integrity, or habitability) from normal wear and tear. A 15-year-old water heater at the end of its expected lifespan may not qualify as a defect under your contract even though replacing it will cost you money. Build your requests around items that clearly meet the contract’s threshold.
Decide What to Ask For
For each issue you intend to raise, you have three basic options. Each one has trade-offs that go beyond the dollar amount.
- Ask the seller to complete the repair before closing. The problem gets fixed on the seller’s dime, but you have limited control over who does the work or how well. The final walkthrough is your main chance to verify quality.
- Ask for a closing cost credit. The seller contributes money toward your closing costs, which reduces the cash you bring to the settlement table. You handle the repair after closing using contractors you choose. This is often the cleanest option through escrow.
- Ask for a price reduction. The purchase price itself drops, which lowers your loan amount and some long-term costs. The immediate relief is smaller than an equivalent credit because the savings spread over the life of a 30-year mortgage.
The credit-versus-price-cut choice also touches your cost basis, the figure used to calculate capital gains when you eventually sell. A lower purchase price means a lower starting basis, which can increase your taxable gain down the road. Repairs you pay for that would have been the seller’s responsibility can be added to your basis.1Internal Revenue Service. Selling Your Home
Whatever you ask for, back it with documentation. Vague complaints carry little weight. Written estimates from licensed contractors — a roofer’s quote for the roof, an electrician’s quote for the panel — give your request a concrete dollar figure the seller’s agent can verify.
Know Your Lender’s Cap on Seller Credits
If you are financing the purchase, your lender limits how much the seller can contribute toward your closing costs. Request more than the cap allows and the excess has to come off the sale price, which changes your loan-to-value ratio and can affect your terms. The ceilings depend on loan type:
- Conventional loans backed by Fannie Mae: with less than 10% down (LTV above 90%), seller credits are capped at 3% of the sale price. With 10% to 25% down, the cap rises to 6%. With more than 25% down, the limit is 9%. Investment properties are capped at 2% regardless of down payment.2Fannie Mae. Interested Party Contributions (IPCs)
- FHA loans: seller concessions are limited to 6% of the sale price across all loan-to-value ratios. Anything above 6% is subtracted from the sale price before the loan amount is calculated.
- VA loans: the seller can pay all of your standard closing costs without a cap, but total seller concessions — including items beyond standard closing costs, such as paying off your debts or funding escrow reserves — cannot exceed 4% of the home’s reasonable value.3U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. VA Funding Fee and Loan Closing Costs
On a low-down-payment loan, a large credit request can hit the ceiling fast. If repair costs would exceed the cap, you may need to split the ask: some seller-completed repairs, a smaller credit, or a price reduction instead.
Submit the Request and See How the Seller Responds
Your agent sends the formal request to the seller’s agent using standardized forms issued by your state or local realtor association. Depending on the market, these go by names like Request for Repair, Inspection Objection, or Inspection Addendum. Each one asks you to describe the issue precisely and specify the remedy. “Fix the plumbing” invites disputes later. “Replace the corroded galvanized supply line from the water meter to the house” does not.
The seller usually has three to five days to respond in writing, depending on your contract. They can accept everything, reject everything, or counter — agreeing to a major structural fix, say, while declining cosmetic items. The back-and-forth can continue, but your contingency clock keeps running the whole time.
If the Listing Is “As-Is”
An as-is designation does not take away your right to inspect. It means the seller will not make repairs, not that you must close blind. You can still order the inspection, review the findings, and cancel under your inspection contingency if you do not like what you see. What you generally cannot do is demand repairs as a condition of closing. Your options narrow to accepting the property’s condition, asking for a price reduction (some as-is sellers will consider one even when refusing repairs), or canceling within your contingency window.
Watch the Contingency Deadline
The inspection contingency is not open-ended. Your purchase agreement sets a specific deadline, commonly 10 to 17 days from contract acceptance, by which you must either resolve inspection issues or make a decision about the deal. What happens when that date passes depends on whether your contract uses active or passive contingency removal. Confusing the two can cost you thousands of dollars.
Under an active contingency, the contingency stays in place until you sign a document removing it. If the deadline passes and you have done nothing, you still have the contingency and still have your out. Under a passive contingency, silence is consent: if the deadline passes without a cancellation or an extension request, you are deemed to have waived the contingency automatically. You lose your right to cancel over inspection issues, and your earnest money is at risk.
Which type governs your contract depends on the standard forms used in your market. Some states’ forms use one approach exclusively; others let the parties pick. Read the contingency clause carefully and ask your agent to confirm which version applies. If you are on a passive contingency and need more time, request a written extension before the deadline, not after.
Even under an active contingency, the seller can usually send a written notice demanding that you remove the contingency or cancel within a set number of days. That notice forces the decision. Letting a deadline slip without a deliberate choice is one of the most common and avoidable mistakes in a real estate transaction. Calendar every date the day you sign the purchase agreement.
Removing the Contingency
Once you and the seller agree on how to handle the inspection findings — or you decide the report is acceptable as-is — you sign a contingency removal form. This document carries real legal weight. By signing it, you are confirming you are satisfied with the property’s condition and the agreed resolutions. In most contracts, removing the inspection contingency makes your earnest money deposit, typically 1% to 3% of the purchase price, non-refundable for reasons tied to the property’s condition.
If you later back out over a condition issue you already knew about, the seller can generally keep the earnest money as liquidated damages, a pre-agreed amount written into the contract so neither side has to prove actual losses in court.
Follow-Up Testing When the Report Flags It
A standard inspection covers the major systems: roof, foundation, plumbing, electrical, HVAC. Certain hazards require separate testing by specialists, and if the general report raises red flags, scheduling that follow-up inside your contingency window matters because the results can change the deal.
Lead-Based Paint in Pre-1978 Homes
Federal law requires sellers of any home built before 1978 to disclose known lead-based paint hazards, hand over any existing lead records or reports, and provide an EPA-approved lead hazard information pamphlet. The seller must also give you at least 10 days to hire a specialist for a lead paint risk assessment or inspection, though you can waive this right in writing.4eCFR. Subpart A Disclosure of Known Lead-Based Paint and/or Lead-Based Paint Hazards Upon Sale or Lease of Residential Property The purchase contract must contain a specific lead warning statement and your signed acknowledgment that you received the materials. If lead is found at dangerous levels, remediation becomes a significant negotiation point.
Radon Testing
Radon is an odorless, radioactive gas that seeps in from the ground and is the second leading cause of lung cancer. The EPA recommends mitigation when indoor radon reaches 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) or higher, and suggests considering a fix between 2 and 4 pCi/L because no exposure level is considered completely safe.5U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. What is EPA’s Action Level for Radon and What Does it Mean Radon testing is not part of a standard inspection and must be requested separately. If results come back at or above the action level, a mitigation system (typically sub-slab depressurization) becomes a common repair request.
The Final Walkthrough
The final walkthrough is not a second inspection. It is a verification visit, usually scheduled within a few days of closing, and its purpose is to confirm three things: that the seller completed any agreed repairs, that the property is in substantially the same condition as when you made the offer, and that nothing new has gone wrong, such as burst pipes, storm damage, or removed fixtures. Bring your inspection addendum and any repair receipts or invoices the seller provided and check each item.
If repairs were not done, or were done poorly, you have options before closing. You can negotiate a last-minute credit, ask the seller to hold funds in escrow until the work is finished, or push the closing date. If the seller clearly breached the repair agreement, you may have grounds to cancel entirely, though a late-stage cancellation carries risk and usually calls for legal advice.
If a Serious Problem Shows Up After Closing
Discovering a serious defect after you own the home is a different legal situation. Your leverage shifts from contract contingencies to potential fraud or breach-of-disclosure claims against the seller. You generally need evidence that the seller had actual knowledge of the problem before closing and chose not to disclose it. A defect your inspector missed does not, on its own, prove concealment.
Most states apply a discovery rule, meaning the clock on the statute of limitations does not start until you discover the defect or reasonably should have. Deadlines vary significantly by state, generally running two to six years depending on the type of claim, and some states also impose an outer cutoff regardless of when you found the problem. If you suspect concealment, talk to a real estate attorney promptly; waiting can forfeit your claim even where the discovery rule applies.