Pre-listing & inspection repairs

Sales rarely fall over on the big things. They stall on an inspection report full of small items nobody got round to, and on a seller who finds out what is wrong at the same time as the buyer.

Two moments, two different jobs

Before listing. The visible, cheap items that set the tone. A buyer walking into a property where the faucets drip and the sealant is black assumes the things they cannot see are worse. Clearing those before photographs and viewings changes what the inspection feels like before it has started.

After inspection. A dated list with a contingency period attached. The work has to be done, documented, and done in time.

What comes up most

On the plumbing side, in rough order of frequency:

• Running toilets and dripping faucets. Trivial, and flagged every single time.
• Leaks under sinks. The cabinet nobody opens.
• Slow drains, and the question of whether it is a blockage or a line.
• Water heater age, missing drain pan, missing expansion tank, improvised relief discharge. Installation shortcuts from a previous owner become the current owner’s report item.
• Angle stops and flexible connectors at the end of their life.
• Missing or inaccessible shut-offs.
• Cast-iron drain lines in anything built before the mid-1970s.
• Galvanized supply in older Coral Gables, North Miami and Hialeah properties.
• Sealant and grout that reads as neglect whatever the truth is.

On the frightening items

Two findings scare buyers disproportionately: cast iron and galvanized pipe.

An inspector reports what is visible. That is their job, and it is not the same as establishing whether the pipework has actually failed. Cast iron fails unevenly — horizontal runs under a slab go first, vertical stacks often have years left.

Getting the line inspected before anybody negotiates a credit is frequently the difference between a small number and a large one. If it has failed, you want to know that too, in writing, before a buyer’s contractor puts their own figure on it. See cast-iron drain replacement.

How we work a report

Work from the report as written. Send it as it came. We would rather read the inspector’s wording than a summary of it — the wording is what the other side will hold you to.

Tell you what fits the date. Before agreeing. If the list does not fit the contingency period we will say which items can be done and which cannot, rather than agreeing and then slipping.

Separate the items honestly. Which are genuine defects, which are maintenance, and which are an inspector noting a condition rather than a fault. Not everything on a report needs doing, and you should be told which is which by someone who is not being paid per item.

Document as we go. What was found, what was done, what it involved. Written for forwarding. A clear record is what stops a cleared item being re-opened.

Clean and out of the way. Properties in this phase are being shown. We work around viewings and leave no trace.

All plumbing work is completed to the Florida Building Code and presented for inspection where inspection applies, by a licensed Florida contractor, Lic. #CFC1433820.

For realtors

Send the list and the date. You will get a straight answer about what fits, in writing, that you can forward to your client and to the other side without rewriting it.

Where several items belong to different trades, we will tell you plainly which ones are ours. A plumber who claims everything on a report is a plumber you will be managing rather than relying on.

Working against the contingency period

The clock is the part of this job that people underestimate.

A contingency period is not a deadline for starting work. It is a deadline for the work being done, documented and accepted — and the documentation often takes longer to move between parties than the repair takes to carry out.

So the useful sequence is: get the list to us early, get a straight answer about what fits, and get the documentation moving as each item clears rather than all at the end. An item repaired on the final day, with paperwork that arrives after it, has not really been cleared.

Where the list is longer than the period allows, the choices are usually to prioritize the items the buyer actually cares about, or to credit rather than repair. Both are legitimate. What is not legitimate is agreeing to a list that cannot be done and discovering it in the last week, which is why we will tell you before agreeing.

What affects the cost

• How many items, and whether they are done in one visit.
• What is behind them. A running toilet is a fill valve. A slow drain might be a clear or a line.
• Whether anything needs investigating before it can be priced.
• The deadline. Compressed timelines cost more, and we will say so rather than quietly missing them.
• Making good where an item requires opening anything up.