At what point during the home buying process should I have a full home inspection done?

Should I have a full home inspection done after the initial offer? The only reason I want to have a full home inspection done prior to me signing the papers, is because I would like to see if there would be any defects with the house that would make a lower offer more successful. If there are things wrong, I am thinking perhaps the seller will be more willing of a lower offer. Am I thinking the right way?

Typically the purchase contract you sign will have a clause that permits you to have an inspection within 10 days.

If you find a defect and notify the seller that you want it repaired they can either fix it or you have the ability to back out and get your downpayment back.

Or they could lower the price based on the cost to fix the defect.

I doubt that any seller will allow you to have an inspection prior to signing the contract.

Until you have a binding contract on the house, you could spend money on an inspection and someone else buy the house while you are doing so, or you may not even be able to make the deal on the purchase you want!

Also until you have a contract the inspector and you don't have written permission to do the inspection.

Most states standard contracts have an inspection period or some such built into the contract. In Texas we have an "option period" (usually seven to ten days) at the very first of the contract that allows the buyer to terminate the contract without even explaining why. The buyer using this as leverage to get repairs agreed to or get the price adjusted based on new information about condition.

The seller will have to disclose to any future buyer this new information- so if it is a valid repair, they may as well do the repair for you and normally agree.

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In the United States what we call surveys (as far as real estate is concerned) are designed to determine property boundaries and are required by the mortgage company but not done until very late in the loan process. Appraisals are also required by the mortgage companies but these do not have any value as an inspection at all. I would assume that any "inspection" done by an mortgage company is almost worthless to the buyer- it will not be a very detailed one. This may be different in the UK.

Usually the mortgage company will have a survey/inspection carried out before they make a mortgage offer to you. You will pay for this (about £300) and you will receive a copy of the surveyor's report (although you have no legal cause to rely on this as their client is the mortgage company).

At this point you can pay extra to have a more advanced survey done which can be worthwhile on older properties, but more expensive.

You will never sign the contract until after the survey is completed satisfactorily as your mortgage offer is dependent on it.

If you do the survey through the bank at the normal time you can still pull out then or decrease your offer.

NB: the process may be different if you are outside the UK.

You should have your inspection AFTER the offer papers have been signed. Give yourself enough time before closing incase your inspector finds anything wrong. If your inspector does find something wrong you could counter the offer of give them the option to fix. Remember that signing the offer papers is only intent to buy agreement, if you found a problem with it and they refuse to fix it or lower the offer you are in no way bound to the agreement.

Also contact your insurance company and see if any claims have been paid out on your property, if they have find out why and let your inspector know so he/she can inspect more closely. This is how I found out that a house I was going to buy had been flooded two years prior.