The final walk through during a home sale transaction is a very important step to make sure the buyer is purchasing the home they were expecting. Lynn Norusis with the FOCUS on NoVA Real Estate explains the important steps and timing that need to be taken during this final stage of purchasing a home.

First, congratulations! You have ratified on a contract, made it through all of your inspections, and you are on the way to purchasing your home. But first, you want to make sure that the home that you are about to sign off on is in the condition that you are expecting it to be in.

The way that the contract is written in Virginia, the buyer has a seven-day period prior to settlement to be able to get in the home to do a final walk through.

So what does that walk through include? First and foremost, a seller is required to have it broom cleaned. This is very important to know this does not mean that they are supposed to have hired any cleaning service to come in. All of their items that do not convey should be out of the home and they should keep it broom swept for you.

When you go through the walkthrough you are looking for items such as: are all of the fixtures and conveyed items still in the home? This is something that would have been agreed upon at time of ratification.

You are also looking to see if there were any items that the seller was supposed to have repaired prior to settlement that that has been done. You should also make sure that you get those invoices from them to make sure that it was done by a professional contractor.

You are also going through and you’re checking all the utilities. You’re turning on all the light switches. You’re running all the water. You’re making sure the heat comes on. You’re making sure the air conditioner comes on.

You want to make sure that you are buying the home as it was depending on the date that you put into the contract. So it could either be the date of showing, the date of home inspection, or some other date of your choosing that is dictated by what you wrote into your contract.

If there are any issues when it comes to the final walkthrough your agent should be on the phone with the other agent to get those items mitigated prior to settlement. There is a checklist for the final walkthrough where the buyer signs off on it. If the least thing, the smallest thing, that you do is to note what those discrepancies are, note it; sign it; and get it over because you definitely want to have a paper trail. However, you do really want to get those items mitigated prior to settlement. You do have a couple options of pushing settlement back if something cannot be fixed in that time period, but again that’s something that both the seller and the buyer need to agree upon in writing.

Depending on how long you do your final walk through prior to settlement, you or your real estate agent should always, always, always, always make sure that you stop by the property prior to signing.

The last thing you want to do is do a final walkthrough a few days before you go to signing and then find out that morning a tree fell on the property, or a pipe burst and there’s now a water issue, or by maybe the house caught on fire. So you just want to make sure that you are doing a thorough final walk through, and depending on the timing, make sure that you’re always taking a look at that property right before you go to signing so you know exactly what it is you are buying.

If you have any questions about Northern Virginia real estate, reach out as we are happy to help.