How do I ask the seller for repairs after a home inspection in Virginia?

The best repair request is short, specific and tied to your contract deadline. After a Virginia home inspection, most buyers do better asking for a handful of serious items than for everything the report mentions.

A typical inspection report runs dozens of pages and flags dozens of items. Almost every house has them. The skill is knowing which ones to put in front of the seller.

What should go on the repair request?

Start with the items that affect safety, water and major systems. Those are the ones a lender, an insurer or a future buyer would also care about.

In plain terms, that means active roof or plumbing leaks, signs of moisture in a crawl space or basement, electrical hazards, a failing furnace or air conditioner, and anything the inspector calls a safety concern. If the report says “recommend evaluation by a licensed professional,” treat that as a task, not a footnote.

Leave out the cosmetic and the minor: scuffed paint, a loose cabinet knob, a worn caulk line. Those are part of buying a used house. Our guide on what happens at a Virginia home inspection explains how to read the difference between a defect and a normal sign of age.

Do I ask for repairs, a credit or a lower price?

You usually have three options, and they work differently.

Repairs mean the seller fixes the item before closing. You get a finished fix, but you don’t control who does it or how well. A credit or price reduction means you take the house as it is and handle the work yourself, which suits a buyer who already has a contractor in mind. Many requests mix the two: repairs for safety and system items, a credit for the rest.

Before you ask for a credit, call your lender. Loan programs can limit how much seller money may be applied at closing, and a credit that doesn’t fit the loan can create a problem you didn’t need. The same caution applies to our explainer on seller concessions.

How do I word the request so the seller says yes?

Write it as a numbered list with the inspector’s finding next to each item. Attach the page or photo from the report. Where a specialist has looked, attach the estimate.

Then say what you want for each item: repair by a licensed contractor, or a credit of a stated amount. A request that names the problem, the proof and the remedy is easy to approve. A request that says “please address the attached report” invites a long argument.

Keep the tone factual. The seller is deciding whether to keep a deal alive, and a calm list helps them do that.

What do the deadlines mean?

Your contract sets the window for the inspection and for sending your request, and the exact days are in your contract, not in this article. Miss the window and you may lose the right to ask or to walk away on inspection grounds.

That is why the sequence matters. Book the inspector quickly, get the report, send any specialist in the same week, and have your agent draft the request while the clock is running. If the seller counters, you may be negotiating against that same deadline, so ask your agent whether an extension is worth requesting in writing.

This is general information. For a dispute over what the contract says, talk to a Virginia real estate attorney.

What I tell my own clients

Decide your walk-away line before the report arrives. Some problems you would fix yourself; some would end the deal regardless of price. Knowing which is which turns a stressful week into a short decision.

My read is that a buyer who asks for three well-supported items is more likely to get a clean yes than a buyer who asks for thirty. A request is a negotiation, but it is also the first test of how you and the seller will deal with each other until closing.

If the report turns up something expensive and unfamiliar, pause before you respond. A specialist’s opinion costs a little and can change the whole conversation. The inspection contingency guide covers your options in more detail.

What should I do next?

If you have an inspection report in hand, or one coming, send it to a Keeton & Co agent before your deadline and we’ll help you sort it into must-ask, nice-to-ask and skip. To start, contact us or read about working with a buyer’s agent. The Glen Allen team is at our headquarters office, and Daniel Keeton wrote this guide.