Have you spoken to your lawyer who's handling the sales transaction? Or your local real estate board or even someone else in your agent's firm?

I'm sorry, Andrea, I don't know who that is or how to contact them. So far I've only electronically signed the sales contract and I only am communicating with my real estate agent. I haven't contacted nor been contacted by other people.

*Edit to be clear: Of course, I also had to sign the mortgage paperwork. An appraisal was done, I was not told the amount, either. It's like I had a real estate agent until we picked out the home and I've been ghosted. We close on the 21st.

Are you in the US?

Yes, I am in the midwest and it's a typical suburb home in the 300s.

When do u close/take possession of the property? Where we live (Ontario, Canada) a lawyer handles the sales closing process & paperwork - looks up title, liens on property, holds the funds in trust to be transferred to sellers on day of closing, transfer of ownership etc. In fact, the buyer's real estate agent/firm requests this info to complete their part of the process. Look up Real Estate law firms in your area...
Have you tried calling your agent's main office to speak to someone else - the agent's boss? Also look up your area's real estate board. While yes, always advisable to read everything thoroughly (which I'm sure you now will), it's very strange that "contingent on financing" or "contingent on home inspection" wouldn't have been discussed between you & your agent prior to your signing.

Not sure this matters much to you at this moment, but even with an inspection, stuff in a house breaks and costs money, no matter how old or new the home. Houses are expensive - and then you have all the other stuff you didn't know you had to buy: lawnmower, snow blower (and/or snow shovels), rakes, hoses, tools, etc. So. Much. Stuff. If you are really at the top of your budget already, and you're going to have little left in savings after purchase, might be best to just cut your losses (which I assume would be your appraisal fee and probably your earnest deposit, depending on your contract) and find something else. Oh, and find a new agent, this one sounds like a clunker.

We close on the 21st. I don’t know that they have a boss. I can try going to the real estate board? I will start learning about that.

And to the other person, I fully agree with you and know to save money, have insurance etc. But something breaking isn’t the same as moving into a home that needs a $15k sump pump and sealing off the bat or that has dangerous radon levels and my kids are sleeping in it until I can find thousands to put in a system. I wouldn’t buy a home with those issues, and I thought I’d have a chance to inspect for those before closing. Hope that makes sense.

If you’re closing in a week you must have engaged an attorney at least three weeks ago. Talk to your lawyer. If you don’t have one I wouldn’t close next week even if it means losing the earnest money. You need a lawyer.

It makes perfect sense. Start making phone calls and raising a little trouble. It's your money, don't be afraid of demanding service. Call the managing broker at the real estate office. This is your agent's boss. Relate what you have told us. They are supposed to represent you.

As purchaser, you have a right to a copy of the appraisal. That comes from your mortgage broker. Call them and ask for your copy. They may have provided to your agent and your agent hasn't given it to you. Raise a little stink about this. It should take all of 10 minutes to email a copy of it to you.

If one of the agent's is out of town, you call their broker, boss. They get part of the commission, make them earn it. Don't accept voice mail. Insist on talking to a real person. Follow it up with email.

At this point, you probably need a real estate attorney consultation in order to understand your rights and the proper way to exit the transaction. At the very least, a consultation will ease your mind. Good luck.

You need to get your real estate agent's attention asap. Call, text, email, mask up and visit the offices. Start calling the supervisors. Call the other agents in the office. It is unacceptable to not be able to reach your agent in the middle of a transaction.

Get some clarification on WHY the inspection was supposedly "waived" without bringing it to your attention? Hmm?

There's no doubt about it, you should've read the contract. However, I'm sure the agent knows you are inexperienced, and if you are in a contractual relationship with the agent, then something is wrong with the contract being written like that without it being called to your attention.

If your agent is unwilling to help you, I would make a little noise about wanting to back out of the deal. How much would you lose by doing that? How much would the real estate agent lose by you doing that? How motivated would the sellers be to allow the inspection (may depend on the housing market in your area, price, seller-specific situation)...

If there is a lot of resistance to the home inspection, then you need to wonder why that is.... and I think you need help from an attorney at that point.

Radon mitigation systems are hundreds, not thousands.

Sorry about the no inspection. We recently bought a condo in the Midwest (moving from the MidSouth) and got an inspection on what we thought was a pristine, excellent condition property. Glad we did - there's a leak in the bathroom above the dining room that was only picked up via a FLIR camera, the house has Radon, and the roof is shot. A few other things too, but if the seller hadn't known/fixed those things we'd have walked.

See, I didn’t even know it could be hundreds. My sister bought a home around here with radon and it was $3k to install. Chump change

for some but still a frustrating hit for me right now. It’s been a pressurized roller coaster.

A few things to consider. Most areas in the US do not use an attorney that represents the buyer or seller and just represents the title company. I think in this case it would be wise to consider consulting one. It may even be a free consultation. I had a free one when we bought our last property. I was willing to pay though as when I reviewed the title commitment I found some curious things, but the guy spent an hour and advised me and didn't even charge me for it.

Did you sign a buyers agreement with the real estate agent? If not then the agent was not representing you and is just representing the seller so I could see this being a potential issue that you were not aware of either. In my area agents make you sign that you understand their role and that they work for the seller if you don't choose to sign a buyers agreement as part of the contract.

One way for you to get out of the contract is likely if you don't qualify for financing with a certain rate without any penalties, but without any knowledge of your contract that may or may not be there. It is part of the standard contracts in my area and we always have the agent fill in a fairly low rate that will still seem reasonable for the seller.

Yes I guess sellers can always sue you, but that would also cost them a lot of money so they are less likely to do so as well and it could tie up their house for a long time which I'm sure they want to sell so not sure they'd want to keep from selling it for longer just so they can sue you.

I think the best you can do is consult a residential real estate attorney as soon as you can so they can help you navigate what to do.

Oh I should say many people make a stupid mistake and go and purchase something large before closing and loose their financing because they spent some of the money they had and the bank checks all this and pulls the financing because they no longer feel the customer has enough assets for the purchase. Just saying there are many ways financing can fall through and people have to pull out of a purchase.

Ok, so here’s what’s been developing today after posting this.

I started searching the web for

similar situations and learned about CLUE. I’ve just recently been working with a home insurance agent to get my plan ready and as much as its a job for him, he’s been thorough and helpful. So I called him and explained. He said only

the homeowner can access the actual report and I thought I had hit a dead end but then he started talking about claims history in the past 5yrs and

told me there were no claims.

I called my real

estate agent and I called the office where he works. Nothing.

Then I probably did what was a faux pas but I contacted the wife of the homeowner by looking on fb.

She contacted me and showed me their radon test from 2yrs ago. We had a nice

chat. She seemed aghast about suing and said if we back out they’ll just go into another contract and that they’ve even had higher offers. She said to her the home is safe and as a

mom she wouldn’t sell a bad home.

About 10 minutes ago, my real estate agent contacted me to say the sellers agent is still on vacation and no one else is answering for this listing. He said we can back out, lose our earnest money, and try for another home or

gamble on this one. He said one thing to consider is doing inspections on closing day. I don’t fully understand his angle but he seemed to think that would be in our favour if anything is a nightmare.

After talking to the lady, I’m going to take the gamble. It sounds as if I’ve played phone tag and got a bit of home buyer panic. I will

update in a week and let

you all know if I ruined my life lol.

And yes I still think the contract was hokey. I complained to the agent about that but he said that is all he’s been doing since April with the market. He said something about our area being very hot b/c we aren’t affected by covid-19 and that people are buying homes unseen from out of state so it’s take what you can and pray.

My suggestion is to run. You also need to find a new insurance agent. If I am understanding correctly your IA told you that only homeowners received a copy of the inspection. That in most states is wrong. If a homeowner asks for an inspection when thinking of selling to see obvious defects that need fixing that inspection is theirs because they paid for it. If there had been an inspection before purchase you would have paid for it and it would have been yours.

If you are over your head right now all of the things that go with home ownership will put you deeply in debt.

Do not rely on what the homeowner tells you because they have a vested interest in selling the property.

I think the agent is saying on closing day because the owners have already moved out and if you find something and refuse to close it is inconvenient for them and they are more likely to be willing to negotiate. I think that is kind of crappy though.

I can understand selecting no inspection contingency in a hot market, however the Realtor should have discussed this with you. One thing to consider is that you should still be able to inspect. Just can't ask sellers to fix anything or pull out of the contract due to the inspection.

Inspection on Closing Day. Um.

That is double-speak for inspection AFTER you own the house! Once you own the house, you own the house. He's basically advising you that you can hire an inspector to find all that's wrong with your house, that you now OWN.

I would be deeply dismayed and unhappy with this agent. He is mowing you down to get to his commission. That's what it seems like to me.

This whole thing smells bad. In your shoes, I would not allow myself to be walked on like this. There are other offers that are higher?

I would tell your real estate agent THAT bit of information, and hold his feet to the fire. Let him negotiate to allow your inspector in. If the seller has other offers, then they won't mind a bit! They'd probably be happy to let you go and grab one of those other offers. THIS is what's going to motivate your r.e. agent to get you an inspection.

Hi maifleur03,

I looked online and it appears to be true. Apparently only a homeowner can order an actual CLUE report. He did me a favour by confirming there were no claims filed in the past 5yrs, and that includes closed inquiries. Hardly a replacement for an actual inspection.

As for the other posts, I recognize the logic and rationally agree. But, in this market and situation I'm not really sure what to do, either. We close the sale on our home (same day closing, so August 21st) and I can see how her claim of other offers is legit. We took the first offer and it was almost 20k over our list price. And we still get phone calls, emails, we even had someone knock on our door begging to take their number if our buyer falls through. I can only imagine what they got b/c they are a less common floor plan (5 bed/3bath). We slammed down our offer first and they had 3 others (allegedly all w/o home inspections, all talk from my agent) at that time alone.

I can say I felt better after actually hearing from people. I understand the lady could be lying out her butt. Or even just ignorant of her own home. But the feeling I had when I started grinding through phone numbers is that everyone is just busy with bts, vacations, selling other homes, etc and nobody thought this was a problematic sale.

In a week, all of you and I will know...either I missed a falling tree or I've done the worst thing in my immediate life.

If they had higher offers that they’ve rejected in favor of your offer - why? There are valid reasons to reject a higher offer : perhaps the closing date was too soon (& non negotiable) & their new home wouldn’t be ready so they’d incur both short term rental & furniture storage fees that would cost more than they’d pocket from the increased price. But multiple higher offers? Personally I’ve only rejected higher offers due to contingencies (ie; choosing cash over a mortgage contingency). So just maybe those higher offers had a home inspection contingency which they wanted to avoid. If that’s the case, they would certainly prefer your lower offer without a home inspection contingency. Of course there’s no way of knowing, so I could very well be wrong.

blazegirl, do you mean you as a seller can just back out of a contract if you get a higher offer? I didn't know that. We took the first offer we got, too. But it turns out we could have gone way way higher. And our place is just a tiny one bathroom condo, too. I was shocked. I've been telling myself at least it was good...20k over is nothing to sneeze about, but it also doesn't contribute to market problems in the neighborhood. And it's someone buying her first condo, too.

Granted, maybe if I hadn't been a moron and had noticed this inspection wording in the contract sooner, everyone would have been thrilled about backing out. As it is, I'm closing and moving, they're closing and moving. We are all doing musical chairs right now. :( The rational part of me is seeing this is hugely risky and weird, and the rest of me is stuck in a cascade of things such as the kids already enrolled in the new school district...even distant concerns such as the future of our country w/ this pandemic. I don't think the sellers are that flexible, either. They allegedly are moving out of state and downsizing since their teens are going to college.

No, not back out of a contract- just reject an offer that has a contingency you don’t like, so you never get to contract. Sorry if I was unclear.

blazegirl, oh, I see what you mean. Definitely I think they could have gone for a bigger one later down the line. Probably did what we did and just took the first big one, not realizing how intense it is in our county. This whole home buying process has not been what I was hoping to experience for our first real home. :( It's been wild navigating it. E.g. some sellers only did virtual showings. Some only permitted one person and one agent. All of them were banning kids; my kids haven't even seen the home yet. We would get the text from our agent, jump in the car, drive over to the potential home and then turn around b/c in the time it took to call/drive, they already had multiple offers.

We got this home b/c we went out to see a home in the same neighborhood, it went pending. And then as we were standing there trying to figure out what home to see next, a neighbor got chatty with us and pointed and said, "They're getting ready to move." So my agent literally knocked on their door and begged for us to look. We put the contract on immediately after that.

What part of the Midwest hasn’t been affected by Covid???

Lesson learned - you cannot trust a real estate agent to be looking out for your best interests. We have never purchased a home without an attorney involved. It’s relatively inexpensive to have agreements reviewed before you sign.

Good luck - hopefully it all works out. Our last inspection didn’t uncover anything when we bought a 15 year old house. Likewise when we sold our 43 year old house inspection didn’t uncover anything the seller required us to do.

In many states, there is no attorney involved. Contracts are standardized by the board of realtors and everything is handled by the title company. My experience is in California (6 homes bought/sold) and PA (1 home).

You've been warned. You know what you are getting into. It sounds like you will be going to closing. We all hope that it turns out well for you and your family.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I really don’t know what I’m getting into, I just don’t see that I have any choice since I didn’t figure it out until two weeks before closing and I’ve been dragged out until one week before closing. So I can burn a bunch of money, Back out of a contract, and then essentially be homeless while trying to fight tooth and nail to find a home around here. So I think it’s more like I’m holding onto any glimmer of hope that might be saying this is all some kind of weird situation with the pandemic and that I’m not getting hosed. The agent seemed legit, we did sign the exclusive paperwork with him, and he’s been doing this for 22 years. So maybe he just got too confident and didn’t want to handhold a new buyer. Or maybe we’re about to get completely screwed. I don’t know, but literally my children are going to school next week, my husband already put in the job transfer, I think it’s more like I’m realizing Way too late. Technically still time to cancel, but now I have to sit here and think about which one is going to cost me more.

Unfortunately, the agent you chose was not a good one. Like all professions there are people that are good at their jobs and those who are not. Your agent should have talked to you about the current climate of the market in your area and about the buying process. I’m an agent and I am uncomfortable telling a buyer not to do a home inspection. In fact we have a pamphlet that we give to the clients with their buyer broker agreement that says “For Your Protection Get A Home Inspection.” I make it clear to my buyers is their choice and they
have to be comfort with their decision. In a hot market you may need to have an inspection with a right to void or waive the inspection all together to get your contract accepted. I’m sorry that you got stuck with one of those agents, that give the rest of agents a bad name. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with mostly good ones and I hope to never have a transaction with the bad ones I encounter. Best of luck and I hope everything turns out well.

I bet that your agent shows up at the closing table to get their commission check.

I wouldn’t panic. I purchased a home twenty years ago in a very competitive market with no inspections. Everything turned out just fine. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing so, but sometimes it’s an advantage over other offers in a hot market. Unlike you, I had a background and experience in real estate. Your agent should have pointed out that he inserted this clause; and I’m sure you’ll NEVER sign another contract without reading it first.

HU sorry I skipped over the CLUE when most posters mention inspection it is the inspection of the actual property so that the buyer has a report of the mechanical things such as electrical, plumbing, cracks in the walls etc. You will also need this type of inspection.

Honestly I'd look into purchasing a home warranty for a year. Hopefully that would 'catch' anything that might have been noted in an inspection.

From what I am reading, you were lucky enough to secure a contract on an unusually large home in a hot market. In circumstances like that, being in the right place at the right time gave you the opportunity to buy a desirable home. If you choose to back out, you will spend more money trying to secure alternative housing, fees and charges duplicated on the next house you find and likely pay a higher price for the replacement.

If you back out now, you are guaranteed to lose money, but if you close, you have a fairly good chance that you haven't bought a problem house. Most issues found in a home inspection are not deal breakers, especially if the property was built in the past few decades. Old houses are more likely to have expensive problems but if this is a newer home, serious issues aren't as likely.

In my area, most sales are as-is with an inspection clause which allows the buyer walk away if there are substantial defects found. In common practice, buyers request certain items to be fixed and sellers often fix issues to avoid losing the sale. However in a hot market, sellers are likely to refuse to fix issues unless lenders refuse to finance the purchase.

Take a deep breath and relax. You will survive and so will your family. Wishing you nothing but the best in this move.

^ what kathyg said.

When I bought this home, the inspector completely missed that the water main to the house had a leak ( I thought the water puddling at the curb must have been from a recent rain - I was there from out of state). I figured it out a week after I moved in when the water never went away. I asked the seller to pay the cost of repair, since I found that she had had a repair previously but didn't disclose that or that the repair was failing. So the disclosure form wasn't correct, and she did agree to pay..

It sounds like there was multiple offers on the house you were purchasing and your agent used this to make you a stronger buyer. Not contingent on a home inspection doesnt mean you can't get one. It just means that you're not going to be using it to renegotiate the deal. Get one if you want. It will put your mind at ease. IF there is something major wrong, you can always back out.(You will lose your deposit in most areas) but at least you will know if the house has any issues.

My advice would have been to close, do an inspection on day one of ownership, and demanded the agent and firm pay you for all of the repairs. The agent "abandoned" you, which is a legal term that no agent or firm wants to fight.

I would also go to their website and write a review and better yet, go to Google Reviews and post a review there.

Glad to here it worked out for you.