<p>While a walk-through is common, it has no legal validity outside whatever is specified in the purchase agreement. I mean assuming you had an inspection contingency, by the time of closing it has been waived or satisfied. You don’t get a second inspection that would allow you to complain about condition. If there is a material change in the property, the purchase agreement should cover it: things like damage by a storm require paying over of insurance funds, etc. If a cabinet door is cracked or the rug is stained, tough: you had the ability to object earlier. This sometimes degenerates into threats, refusing to close, etc. and then a negotiation but in very few cases does the buyer actually have a legal leg to stand on.</p>
<p>There are sometimes arguments about when damage occurred, with purchasers insisting it was after the inspection date. Those sometimes end up in court and, honestly, what I see is that the purchaser has to pay up, though what depends on the state’s laws about specific performance. My experience is these arguments tend to come when the purchaser actually can’t close or when some personal issue has come up - like a marital argument - and the purchaser is looking for an excuse not to close. (Over the last few years, you also see people who think/realize/fear they’re paying too much.) Those end up in court and the purchaser at a minimum loses the deposit. Courts aren’t hospitable to people who come up with excuses to renege on contracts, not when another family is involved.</p>
<p>I did discover on a walk through that the seller had stolen things which had been set aside to remain in the purchase agreement. That was fun. His lawyer held their money in escrow until we got the stuff back.</p>
<p>Lergnom–around here the walkthrough very much has legal validity. If all appliances were working at the time of inspection, for example, and upon walkthrough one no longer is, those working appliances are written into the purchase agreement and if they are not working, the sellers have the responsibility to fix them, replace them or offer financial compensation for the loss of value. The issue comes in if you don’t look at those things in a walk through and accept the house at closing that the sellers could then argue that it was working when they moved out.</p>
<p>My mom had a case where the sellers took all of the window treatments, blinds, curtains, everything. She found this on the walk through and they had to come back and not only bring it all back but install everything. Their choice was to delay closing until this happened or hold funds in escrow until it was complete. Here escrow accounts have to be 2.5 times the expected cost so it was a fairly sizable sum of money.</p>
<p>The buyers of my dads house did a preclosing walk through to be sure it was "broomclean’ as promised and that the fixtures and appliances were still there.
All was fine
Apparently at the 11th hour of the closing their realtor literally came running in claiming that there was a problem with one radiator and that the heating system had been guaranteed as working (which it was). So they demanded a huge holdback at closing until it was fixed. Fast forward one week- the plumber said the raidator had to be vacuumed out and a knob replaced. Cost about $160. No need for the huge holdback at closing. But it all got resolved.</p>
<p>jym626-we had a plumber/HVAC guy go through a property we are buying (and others but he was the first). He noted an “electrical issue” with the outlet under the sink but acknowledged that electricity wasn’t his area of expertise–turns out he plugged the dishwasher into the outlet for the garbage disposal–move the plugs, issue solved :D.</p>
<p>I am so glad I didn’t know any of these stories before our walk through. I would have been a lot more apprehensive if I had. Fortunately, everything went well, and my parents walked out of the settlement with a check in hand. The fact that the buyers drove up to the walk through/inspection with their moving van helped also.</p>
<p>Sometimes in a walk-through you discover that the sellers left behind junk that you have to remove, or pay someone to remove. Sometimes you find that they have switched out fixtures that were NOT specified in the contract as exclusions, invariably leaving behind something much cheaper and less attractive. </p>
<p>I’m fairly sure that the people we bought out house from switched some light fixtures, but since we didn’t have pictures I couldn’t be sure, and certainly couldn’t prove it. (They lied about all kinds of things in the disclosure documents, but we knew that in advance.)</p>
I doubt that happens much and really, if a buyer wants to back out of a deal they usually can regardless. The walk-thru makes a lot of sense in just making sure things are still ‘as they were’ at the time of the deal and no new damage/missing items/etc. have happened since the deal was made. </p>
<p>The story a few posts up where the agreed upon appliances were missing at the closing time is an example. I think another item that sometimes goes missing are window treatments.</p>
<p>Someone we know quite well said they were leaving all of the appliances. Well…they left appliances , but not the ones that were in the house when the buyers agreed to purchase. The sellers took the good quality appliances (stove, fridge, washer and dryer) with them to their new house out of state. They bought new VERY bottom of the line ones to replace them. Buyers were ready to walk. Said that until the original appliances were returned, or equivalent ones purchased, the sale was OFF (as an FYI, we tried to tell the sellers not to bait and switch the appliances but they didn’t listen). </p>
<p>They did end up agreeing to a cash settlement to replace the appliances but it cost them FAR more than if they hadn’t tried to pull a fast one on the buyers.</p>
<p>I just dont get why someone would want to cheat someone on the sale of their residence. We’ve had new owners forward mail that ended up there, etc. Best to close on good terms, IMO.</p>
<p>I, too, am trying to figure this one out. We have a contract with all contingencies waved, and a rent back. The buyers were in last week, with realtors (no sellers on their request) to measure for furniture placement. They asked for a walk thru the day of closing, before we have moved out. They also will have a walk thru two weeks later after we have moved out. We are trying to understand what additional they will be looking for that they couldn’t see last week.</p>
<p>^^ Because as long as the house is in your possession and not the buyer’s, something can happen - like thumper’s acquaintance basically stealing appliances (although they might have thought it was okay), or some other damage that might have occurred if the 100 gallon salt water fish tank broke or something (this coming from someone who had a leak in one once).</p>
<p>We’ve always done walk throughs with the sale or purchase of real estate. With the home we’re in now there was a wild unsupervised teenage party in between the contract and closing! I heard later that there were close to 100 kids here and it was broken up by the police. A dozen windows were cracked, a major appliance was dented and fixtures that were supposed to stay were removed.</p>
<p>The sellers didn’t say a word before we pointed out the obvious, then claimed they didn’t have to do anything because the sale was “as is” ( subject to a previous inspection). But we had dozens of photos, and a stipulation in the contract about interim damages and items to be left behind, so they ended up covering all of it.</p>
<p>We had told the previous owners of our current house that they needed to empty the garage of all their junk. As of the walk through the day before they hadn’t done it. They got rid of most of it, but I don’t think they would have if we hadn’t insisted.</p>
<p>Fly - Ah, things are a changin’ here in Amish country. The idea of a walk through makes sense, I just don’t think they happened until recently. Next thing you know banks will also want a survey like they do in NJ!</p>
<p>Glad all went smoothly with the transaction.</p>
<p>Is Ohio the only state where the sellers live in the house after the closing? Walk throughs wouldn’t do much good. When we asked why this is customary, we were told that it’s really an inconvenience for sellers to pack up and leave and then have the deal fall through.</p>
<p>Thanks worknprogress2. We do seem to live in this isolated bubble where we are the last to catch on to trends. In my unscientific research, I discovered that it has happened in my development as long as four years ago. Based on my parents’ realtor’s comments, I think the walk throughs in our county are still perfunctory in nature. Wait until they evolve into methods to change the bottom line at the settlement table. Then we will know we have finally made it in this world! LOL</p>
<p>The seller was still moving her stuff out the morning of the closing, so we returned on our way to the attorney’s office. Everything was out except the room size area rugs (just bound carpet) in 3 rooms. These ‘lovely’ rugs were stained from animals, over-watered planted and who knows what, plus the sellers were smokers. When we brought this up at closing, she told us she thought we wanted them, so she left them. We took $200+ at closing to cover the removal & disposal costs. It was gross - we had to scrape the padding off the floor that night, as we had the floor refinisher coming the next morning to restore the lovely inlays that the sellers had covered up. 18 years later, my floors still look like a shiny basketball court.</p>
<p>When we sold our first house, the buyer was an absolute psycho. We specified in the contract that the washer and dryer were not part of the sale. Then after having financing fall through three times she decided she was going to claim those. The deal almost fell through on that. At the walk through, I tried to show her some things about the new stove. When I reached out to open the warming drawer of the oven, she grabbed my wrist and spewed “if it’s a microwave, just call it a microwave.” It was and, as far as I know, still is a warming drawer. The icing on the cake is that after six months of dealing with this woman, she actually claimed at the closing that we had removed the marble flooring in the kitchen that she was sure was there. It was always tile. She tried to delay the closing and my lawyer told her to see a psychiatrist because we aren’t responsible for her delusions. Her lawyer gave her husband his business card to keep him in mind for the divorce he was sure was coming.</p>
<p>zoosermom–I think that was the same psycho family that bought my parent’s old house :D. They were requesting to come over almost every day to inspect something. It started out with them wanting to come measure windows for window treatments, fine, not a problem, then they had a “plumber” come out and he was inspecting all of the plumbing and if they didn’t think the caulk around the fixtures was good enough they wanted that fixed. The final straw was when my mom was home alone one night and saw flashlights shining in the windows. They had come over to check the seals around the windows and wanted to do it in the dark so see if the light went through.</p>