When you've conditionally bought a new home, an important date to circle on your calendar is the date of the final walk-through. This critical event is an opportunity for you and your real estate agent to thoroughly go through the home to ensure that it meets any criteria that you laid out when negotiating the purchase. This isn't a time to notice new issues and bring them up, although you should feel free to do so. Rather, it's a time to carefully assess the work that the homeowner has done since you were last in the house and ensure that it's acceptable. If any of these issues are evident during this process, make sure to share them with your agent.
Shoddy Craftsmanship
A big part of the final walkthrough is assessing the work that the homeowner has recently had done. For example, if you were concerned about damaged drywall in the basement and specified that the homeowner would need to replace it as a condition of the sale, you must inspect the drywall during the final walkthrough. One issue that you might encounter is shoddy craftsmanship. In other words, perhaps the owner paid a cut-rate contractor to throw some new sheets of drywall up, but they're not taped and mudded or they aren't in proper alignment.
Uncompleted Projects
During the final walkthrough, you and your agent should have a detailed checklist that specifies each project that you wanted the homeowner to complete before the sale goes final. Go through these elements one by one to ensure that they are complete. For example, if the living room carpet was stained, you might have specified that you want it to be professionally steam cleaned. If you don't see signs of this work having been done, your agent will need to raise this issue with the listing agent.
No New Issues
It's possible for new issues to crop up since you last visited the home, so you should use the final walkthrough as an opportunity to watch for these problems, too. For example, perhaps there's been a major storm in the recent weeks. In this case, you'll want to thoroughly check the condition of the basement to make sure that there aren't signs that it has flooded — keep in mind, too, that the owner may have attempted to cover such an issue up, so be vigilant about looking. You should share any issue that concerns you with your agent so that he or she can advise you about how to proceed.
