Negotiating Repairs After a Home Inspection in Texas: What Buyers Can Ask For
Repairs after a home inspection are where a lot of Texas home purchases are won or lost. The inspection report lands in your inbox, it runs 40 or 60 pages, and you have only the days left in your option period to decide what to ask for. Ask for too little and you inherit problems. Ask for everything and you can lose the house or sour the deal.
Here is how the process works under the standard Texas contract, what is reasonable to ask for, and how to put it in writing so it actually gets done.
Start With the Clock: Your Option Period
In a typical Texas resale contract, your leverage to negotiate repairs comes from the option period. During that window you can end the contract for any reason and get your earnest money back. Once it closes, your ability to walk away over inspection findings mostly disappears.
That is why the inspection should be booked the day your contract is signed. If the report comes back on day six of a seven-day option period, you have no time to get a roofer or a plumber out for a second opinion. Our post on the option period in Texas covers the deadlines and how buyers lose them.
What the Inspection Report Can and Cannot Tell You
Texas home inspectors are licensed by TREC and follow its Standards of Practice. The TREC guide for consumers on property inspections explains that inspectors report the condition of items at the time of the inspection and are not required to inspect anything buried, hidden or concealed.
So a report full of items marked deficient is normal, even on a well-kept house. Many of those are code updates the house was never required to meet, or small maintenance items. The skill is sorting them. Our post on the home inspection report walks through the ten items Fort Bend reports flag most and which ones matter.
Sort the Report Into Three Piles
- Safety and active problems. Gas leaks, electrical hazards, active roof or plumbing leaks, failed water heater venting, foundation movement that needs an engineer. These are worth asking about.
- Big-ticket items near the end of their life. An old roof, an aging AC system, a water heater past its prime. These often work today, so the conversation is usually about price or a credit, not a repair.
- Maintenance and minor items. Caulking, loose outlets covers, a sticky door, missing GFCI on one outlet. Fix these yourself after closing. Asking for all of them weakens your request on the items that matter.
If the roof is the question, get a roofer to look at it during the option period. A general inspector can flag a concern; a roofer can tell you whether it is a repair, a claim or a replacement.
Repairs, a Price Cut or a Credit?
You have three main ways to handle repairs after a home inspection, and each has tradeoffs:
- Seller makes the repairs. Good for safety items that must be fixed before you move in. The downside is that the seller picks the contractor and controls the quality.
- Lower sales price. Simple and clean, and it lowers your loan amount. It does not put cash in your hand for the repair.
- Seller contribution toward your closing costs. Frees up your cash to hire your own contractor after closing. Your lender has limits on how much a seller can contribute, so check before you ask.
Some lenders also require certain repairs before they will fund the loan, especially on FHA and VA loans. Those are handled separately, so ask your lender early.
Put It in Writing on the TREC Amendment
A repair agreement in Texas belongs on the TREC Amendment to Contract. The current version, TREC No. 39-11, has spaces to change the sales price, list the repairs and treatments the seller will complete at the seller’s expense, change the amount the seller pays toward the buyer’s expenses, and split the cost of lender-required repairs. It also notes that Paragraph 7 of the contract governs how repairs are completed, documented and how warranties transfer.
Be specific. “Repair roof” invites a $200 patch. “Seller to have a roofing contractor repair the active leak at the rear valley noted on page 12 of the inspection report and provide a written invoice” is something you can check. The amendment has to be signed by both sides before your option period ends, or it is not part of your deal.
How to Ask Without Losing the House
- Lead with the few items that matter most. A short, reasonable list gets taken seriously.
- Attach the relevant pages of the report and any contractor bids.
- Know the market. In a busy Fulshear or Katy market, sellers have less reason to say yes. When homes are sitting, you have more room.
- Decide your walk-away point before you send the request.
Check the Work Before You Close
Ask for invoices and any warranties from the contractors who did the work. Then confirm the repairs at your final walkthrough. If something on the amendment was not done, raise it with your agent before you sign closing documents, not after. A home warranty can help with systems that fail later, but it is not a substitute for getting agreed repairs done.
If you are buying in Fulshear, Katy, Richmond or elsewhere in Fort Bend and want help reading an inspection report and deciding what to ask for, call Terra Point Realty at (713) 766-1697.
This post is general information, not legal advice. Read your contract and the TREC forms, and ask a real estate attorney if you have a legal question.
About the author
Stacy Burgin is the Broker and Founder of Terra Point Realty. She holds the SFR certification for short sales and foreclosures and is a Texas Affordable Housing Specialist (TAHS). She has been licensed in Texas real estate since 2013 and has closed over 300 career real estate transactions — including 130+ home sales representing nearly $30 million in sales volume — across the greater Houston area. HAR Platinum Agent (4.89/5 across 124+ post-transaction client surveys). TREC License #630159.
Terra Point Realty, LLC — TREC Brokerage License #9002493. Information About Brokerage Services · Consumer Protection Notice · Equal Housing Opportunity.