That inspection contingency on your offer to purchase is not a permission slip to nit-pick. Chipped paint, a dead tree, stained countertops are things that are easily visible to the untrained eye and should have been noted by the buyer before the offer, not used as a reason for withdrawing or renegotiating it. Rotting cills, non-functioning built-in appliances, outdated wiring, small but urgent repairs that add up to more than two or three percent of the offering price may be a reason for revisiting that offer.

Or not.

Keeping in mind at all times that there are no perfect houses and few problems that money can't fix.

Publish Date: 12/07/2005