Understanding the Lawfulness of Electronic Signatures for Property Inspection Reports in the United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: electronic signature lawfulness for Property Inspection Report in United Kingdom

[Music] hi i'm andy fitzsimmons i'm your washington realtors legal hotline lawyer following the 2021 revisions to form 35 i've received a lot of questions there's still some confusion out there about who is allowed to inspect buyers property during the initial inspection period versus the additional inspection period and the answer is super simple there is no difference there is literally no distinction between the initial and the additional inspection period as to who buyer may bring into sellers home to perform an inspection the buyer is always limited for the purpose of conducting a general home inspection to hiring a licensed home inspector buyer can conduct their own inspection setting that aside for a moment because we're talking about who the buyer can bring into the seller's home so the for the purpose of conducting the general home inspection has to be a licensed home inspector in addition to a licensed home inspector buyer can bring a specialist the term is not defined in form 35 look in the dictionary for the definition of specialist i'm not being facetious a court if a court is interpreting a contract a court will give the usual and normal meaning to a word unless the word is defined in the contract the word specialist is not defined in the form 35 or anywhere else in the purchase and sale agreement so you're going to use a dictionary definition to come up with the meaning of that word we all know essentially what a specialist is so if the buyer needs to bring a roofing contractor it should be a licensed and bonded roofing contractor but the buyer has the right to bring that roofing contractor onto seller's property during either the initial or the additional inspection period no requirement for the inspector to give a recommendation for a roofing contractor to inspect the roof before the buyer has a right to bring that roofing contractor on the property same thing is true with a mold abatement contractor with a general contractor who's going to give a bid to fix a rotten floor with respect to a pest inspector or pest remediation company whatever the specialist whoever the specialist might be the buyer has the right based on this the permission given by seller through the form 35 to bring that specialist onto sellers property during the initial or the additional inspection time period in the form 35 there is no limit on the number of inspections that buyer can have of sellers property buyer brokers be reasonable when the buyer goes to ask the seller for concessions based on the results of their inspection you're not going to get anywhere if the buyer has so angered the seller through their haphazard approach to inspecting sellers property disrespectful of sellers time and property by not scheduling inspections in an efficient manner by not trying to coordinate inspections as much as possible buyer brokers if your buyer is disrespectful of the seller in their in their home that's not going to help your buyer in future negotiations regarding concessions so when i say there's no limit as to the number or the the variety of inspections buyer can can have that's a true statement there's no limit in the contract common sense hopefully imposes some limits and creates a requirement for efficiency so with all of that said what is the purpose of the additional inspection time the purpose of the additional inspection time is just that it's time it's time for buyer to do more inspections if the initial inspection period is not sufficient time to complete the inspections buyer needs to do in order to satisfy buyers requirement for due diligence buyer will trigger the additional inspection time as described on the form 35 by delivering to seller the form 35r with the appropriate box marked attaching a copy of the recommendation only only the words that form the recommendation from buyer's general home inspector recommending the additional inspection with that buyer triggers the additional inspection time again the only distinction between additional initial inspection and additional inspection is time alone if you have questions on this topic or any other send an email to me legal hotline at warrealtor.org thank you for being a washington realtors member you