This 14-point checklist will help you during your home inspection Having an offer accepted on your dream house may seem like cause for celebration, but you?re not done just yet. You?ll need to get that home and its property inspected before you can pop the bubbly, and there are plenty of problems that could be hiding. This isn?t about peeling paint, which will be both obvious and pretty easy to fix, but about bigger ticket items that can affect the livability of the property. Here are 14 things that warrant extra attention during your home inspection.
1. Oil tank
If you?re buying a house that is heated using oil and intend keep it that way, this might not be a big deal, but if the house is heated with gas, you should make sure to find out if there is an oil tank on the property. The home might once have been heated by oil.
If that?s so, there are two possibilities if the tank is still there. One is that it has been filled with sand and gravel and the other is that it hasn?t. You might be able to leave it there, but certain localities might require that it be removed. New Jersey, for instance, requires that you have an above-ground or in-basement tank. No matter what, you?ll need to ascertain its status and make sure it hasn?t leaked into the ground. Cleaning up a mess like that can be a huge hassle.
"Make sure we sweep the whole property," advises real estate agent Elice Shikama of RE/MAX in Franklin Lakes, N.J. "Because sometimes sellers think they ...