Wet Carpet or No Carpet?

We pull into the driveway of the place we called home for the last 6 years. I’m 13 years old. I can picture this house perfectly in my mind: it’s an English Tudor style cape cod with an iron rod railing and hilly yard. Nothing flashy. Just an average house in an average neighborhood on Mill Street in Erie, Pennsylvania.

My parents checked on the vacant house every few days after moving our family into the new dream house that they built. The Mill Street house was empty, under contract and due to close in less than a week. This was an average check-in to an average house.

What was going on INSIDE those walls that day was anything but normal.

Do you remember the scene in “Home Alone” when Kevin runs across the street to the neighbor’s house to get away from the bad guys? The robbers had turned on all of the faucets after they robbed the place, and there were waterfalls just flowing throughout the home.

Well… 5745 Mill Street looked like it had been visited by the Wet Bandits as well.

Burst pipes spewed water everywhere for half of a week. Water cascaded down the stairs. The carpets were nothing more than a bed of mush under the calf-deep interior lagoon of the family room.

I can just imagine the phone call to the buyer. “Hey… remember how you were disappointed you were that this house didn’t have a pool…? Uh, I have good news!”

Fortunately, the insurance company handled things, and the repairs were done within a relatively short amount of time, and the buyer still wanted the house.

However, if the flooding would have gone unnoticed, the house may have closed. The new buyer would pull her moving truck into the driveway ready to unload and settle into the new place – never knowing that Niagara Falls had moved into that quaint little cape cod on the hill.

My topic today: Avoiding Final Walkthrough Nightmares!
I have advice for buyers and sellers to get to the closing table without any last-second glitches… or waterfalls.

Buyers: You do a walkthrough for 3 main reasons:

1. Make sure that the junk is gone – you don’t want to be responsible for the moldy pool table that’s just too hard to move or the out-of-tune piano that no one wants.

2. Make sure that the agreed-upon items are still there. If you expected a fully equipped kitchen then the seller shouldn’t be outfitting their new home with your stainless-steel appliances!

3. Make sure that the house is in the same condition from when you wrote your offer – no water cascading down the steps or holes gouged in walls from their careless movers.

Mike conducted a walkthrough our buyer Leah. There was some random stuff in the basement – including a super old stove. Leah had absolutely no use for that! So, Mike calls up the listing agent, “Hey, can you please make sure that the old stove and random paint cans in the basement are removed before tomorrow’s closing? Instead of us coming back – can you please just send us a picture of the cleaned-out basement?” No problem, the sellers agree and before Leah signs her closing documents, they get the picture showing the shelves empty of paint cans and the basement corner which is now absent a stove.

Closing done.

Fast forward an hour. Mike gets a call… from Leah… uh oh. The stove is still there! The sellers had moved it to another area of the basement just to show a clean picture!
OH, HECK NO!!!

Needless to say, Mike was HOT and made sure that the sellers were held accountable to get everything moved – even after closing. But typically – once the documents are signed, the deal is done.
That’s why a final walkthrough is so important.

That’s a good example of things needing to be removed, but my friend Jeff Bennet had the opposite happen.
Jeff purposefully never schedules his walkthroughs on the same day as closing.

The sale of one of his listings in the North Hills had gone pretty smoothly… until he a frantic call from the buyer’s agent during the final walk-through. “The carpet!” he sputtered. “It’s gone!”
“It’s… what?!” Jeff was having a hard time processing what the other Realtor was saying. “What do you mean ‘it’s gone?’”
“There’s no carpet! Just sticky subfloor. It’s gone!”
(long pause)

“Really!? Ok, uh… let me call the seller and get right back to you.

Absolutely incredulous, Jeff calls the seller.

“Um… the buyers are doing the walkthrough and… did you remove the carpet by any chance?”
“Yeah! That was brand new. I’m not giving them that!”
(Another long pause… and a deep breath)

Jeff reminded his client about the conversation they had after the seller mentioned wanting to take the chandelier. Jeff had defined “fixtures” and told him that he had to leave anything that’s permanently attached. He had even used the phrase ‘nailed down’

Carpet is pretty much the definition of ‘nailed down’. Literally 10,000 nails!

“You need to put that back by tomorrow, or we’re not going to close.”

The rest of the conversation was heated and lengthy, but the seller eventually saw reason and, reluctantly, conveyed that new carpet to the buyers. Another walkthrough happened the next day, the house closed and all worked out.

Jeff offers sage advice: do your walkthroughs the day before closing.

What if the walkthrough doesn’t go well? Well… things have got to be figured out. Some options would include:

– Closing being delayed until things are corrected.
– Buyers and Sellers negotiating some type of financial compensation.
– I’ve helped clients trade items: The seller accidentally took the additional freezer in the garage, forgetting that was supposed to be included. We got them to agree to leave the lawnmower. The buyers were happy.

The goal, however, is to not get into that situation in the first place. That’s where the sellers come in. Keep the following in mind:
It should probably stay in the house if…

… you need some sort of tool to remove it. (TV mounts should stay, curtain rods stay, smoke detectors stay)
… it was negotiated into the sales agreement. Check the agreement of sale for the list of appliances and inclusions and read the paragraph above where those items are written in. Those things all need to stay! You are contractually bound to leave them there.

It should probably go if…
… you can pick it up and move it out without a tool
… you can’t just throw it in your trash can/have to pay to get rid of it (paint cans, old TV’s)
If you’re unsure… all you have to do is ask. Many of my sellers call or text me pictures as they’re moving out. Any questions – just ask! Your Realtor is your resource.

Katina Hunter
Team Lead for the Katina Hunter Team with Coldwell Banker
724-888-9020
Katina.Hunter@PittsburghMoves.com