TL;DR: Read the summary page first, sort what is on it into safety, major system and maintenance, and decide within the Multi-Board 8.0 contract’s five business days whether you want repairs, a credit, or out. Ask for repairs in a form you can verify (licensed trade, itemised receipt, permit where the City requires one), and treat fresh paint, a single new drywall patch or a fresh bead of caulk at a chronic leak as a reason to look harder, not a reason to relax.
Where do I start with a long report?
With the summary. A full report on a Chicago two-flat can run past sixty pages because every system gets described, photographed and rated, including the ones that are fine. The summary is where we pull out the items that affect safety, the major systems, or your decision. Read that page, then read the body of the report for the items on it, then read the rest. Our sample report shows the layout so you know what the summary looks like before yours arrives the next business day.
Two things to keep in mind while you read. The Illinois Standards of Practice (68 Ill. Adm. Code 1410.200) say a home inspector is not required to determine the remaining service life of any component or the cause behind the need for its replacement, so the report tells you what we observed and what we recommend, not a price. And a long report is not a bad house. A short report on a 1920s brick two-flat is the one that should worry you.
How do I sort the findings?
Three piles. What goes in each is specific, so here are the kinds of items we actually wrote this summer.
Safety
Anything that can hurt someone before you get around to fixing it. Combustible gas detected at the range flex connector (we found that in both units of a two-flat on the Northwest Side in July). A range with no anti-tip bracket. Wire splices outside a junction box under a kitchen sink. No carbon monoxide alarm within 15 feet of a bedroom door, which the Illinois Carbon Monoxide Alarm Detector Act (430 ILCS 135) requires. A missing guard on a rear porch, which in Chicago has to be 42 inches, not the 36 you read on national sites. A cracked vent-connector seal at a chimney thimble. These go at the top of your list regardless of what they cost, because most of them cost little and the contract treats “a current threat to health or safety” as a defect by definition.
Major system
The furnace, boiler, air conditioner, water heater, roof, electrical service and panel, supply and drain plumbing, sewer, and foundation. Read these findings against the contract language, because Paragraph 15 b) 1) of the Multi-Board 8.0 says a major component “shall be deemed to be in operating condition, and therefore not defective within the meaning of this paragraph, if it does not constitute a current threat to health or safety, and performs the function for which it is intended, regardless of age or if it is near or at the end of its useful life.” A 1995 furnace that fires and heats is not a contract defect. A 1995 furnace with a rusted heat exchanger and flame rollout staining is. Our post on judging furnace and AC age explains how we date equipment, and the ones on foundation cracks and sewer scopes cover the two systems most likely to change a Chicago deal.
Maintenance
Downspouts that end at the foundation. A missing furnace filter cover. Braided supply lines past their service life. Caulk at the tub. A loose toilet. Worn weatherstripping. These are real, they are in the report, and they are yours to do after closing. The contract says so directly: “Minor repairs, routine maintenance items and painting, decorating or other items of a cosmetic nature, no matter the cost to remedy same, do not constitute defects.” Sending the seller a list of these is not just ineffective; under 12(a) a request “in violation of the terms of this subparagraph shall allow Seller to declare this Contract terminated.” Keep the maintenance pile for your first month in the house.
What does the Illinois contract let me do, and how fast?
Most Chicago-area deals are written on the Multi-Board Residential Real Estate Contract 8.0, and Paragraph 15 is the inspection contingency. If your contract is a different form, the mechanics are similar but the numbers may not be; read yours. On the 7.0:
- Five business days from the Date of Acceptance to have the inspection done and serve written notice on the seller or the seller’s attorney of the major-component defects you want resolved (12(b)). That is the inspection, the report the next business day, and any specialist follow-up, all inside one working week.
- Do not attach the report to the notice unless the seller’s side asks for it in writing (12(b)). Your attorney sends the item list; the report is your document.
- Ten business days from acceptance to reach written agreement on the inspection issues. If there is no agreement by then, either party can terminate by serving notice (12(b)).
- The walk-away clause. If the inspection makes the property unacceptable to you, notice within the same five business days makes the contract null and void, with no negotiation required (12(c)).
- Silence is a waiver. Miss the window and “this Contract shall remain in full force and effect” (12(d)).
Illinois deals also run through attorney review, and your attorney is the one who drafts the notice. Get them the summary the day it arrives. Our post on backing out after the inspection covers the earnest-money side.
Repair, credit, or walk: which response fits which finding?
Ask for the repair before closing when
The fix is a licensed-trade job with a clear scope and a permit trail, and you want it done before you own the liability: a gas leak, an electrical hazard, an active roof leak, a sewer line with a break on the scope video. The seller controls the contractor, so you have to control the verification (next section).
Ask for a credit when
You would rather choose the contractor and the materials yourself, the work is not urgent for occupancy, or closing is close and there is no time for the seller to get a trade in. A credit at closing is the most common resolution we see in Chicago because it avoids arguing about the quality of a repair nobody has seen yet. Get a written estimate from a licensed trade to size it; our post on estimating repair costs after an inspection explains who to call for what. Note that a credit is limited by your lender’s rules on seller concessions, so tell your loan officer before your attorney sends the number.
Walk when
The finding needs a specialist (structural engineer, sewer contractor) and the answer is one you cannot price inside ten business days; the seller refuses everything and the safety pile is long; or the work you found was done without permits and the City’s permit history shows none. That last one is a Chicago-specific reason to leave, because unpermitted electrical and plumbing has to be opened up to be corrected. Our guide to checking a home’s permit history shows how to look it up before you decide.
How do I ask for repairs so I can verify them?
A repair request that says “fix the electrical issues” gets you a handyman and a receipt for “electrical work.” Write the request so that the outcome can be checked. For each item:
- Name the finding by its report number and location. “Item 4.2, unenclosed splices in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.”
- Name the correction, not the symptom. “Splices to be enclosed in a covered junction box,” not “repair wiring.” “Gas leak at the range connector to be corrected and the connection retested,” not “check the stove.”
- Name the trade. A plumber licensed by the State of Illinois; an electrical contractor licensed by the City of Chicago; a roofer licensed by the State; a masonry contractor for tuckpointing and lintels. “Licensed and insured contractor” in the amendment is the phrase your attorney will use.
- Ask for the paper. An itemised invoice that describes the work done, on the contractor’s letterhead with a licence number, delivered before closing. For a furnace, water heater, electrical service or structural work, the City of Chicago permit number and the final inspection. If the seller’s contractor says no permit is needed for a job you think needs one, ask them to put that in writing.
- Put the verification in the amendment. “Buyer’s inspector to verify completed repairs prior to closing, seller to provide access.” Without that line, you are looking at the repairs during the final walkthrough with the moving truck outside.
What does a repair verification visit check?
It is not a second inspection of the house. We come back with the agreed repair list and check each item on it against what we found the first time.
- The correction, not the appearance. The gas connection gets the detector again. The junction box gets opened. The new GFCI gets tested with a plug-in tester, not just the button. The roof leak gets the moisture meter on the ceiling below it.
- The paperwork against the work. The invoice says the water heater was replaced; we read the data plate and confirm the date code, the expansion tank, the venting, and the T&P discharge line.
- What the repair disturbed. A new furnace with a vent connector held by one screw, or a replaced sink trap that now has no high loop on the dishwasher drain, gets written up.
- Before and after photos, item by item, in a short written addendum the next business day that your attorney can attach to the closing file.
What the visit does not do is give an opinion on whether the contractor was properly licensed or whether a permit should have been pulled; those are questions for the paperwork above and for your attorney. Our post on what a repair verification visit involves has the details, and the pre-closing checklist covers the final walkthrough you do yourself.
What if the seller’s repairs look like a cover-up?
Some of the most useful findings in a report are the ones about repairs that are too fresh. Sellers tidy up before listing, and most of it is honest. These patterns are the ones we slow down for:
- Fresh paint over a stain. One wall or one ceiling in a basement or under a bathroom, newer than the rest. We put the moisture meter on it and, where it helps, the thermal camera. A painted-over stain that reads wet is an active leak that has been hidden, and the report says so.
- New drywall in one spot. A single patched square in a ceiling below a bathroom, or a new panel on a basement wall, with nothing else in the room touched. We look above it and behind it and ask what was there. In a flipped house this is routine; our post on inspecting a flipped house in Chicago is about exactly this.
- A fresh bead of caulk at a chronic leak. Around a tub spout, along a window sill, at the base of a basement window, at a masonry joint that has clearly opened before. Caulk is not a repair for water that is coming from behind the surface. We photograph the caulk and what it is sealing.
- New flooring in one room, air fresheners in every room, and a dehumidifier running in an empty basement. None is proof of anything. Together they are a reason to ask questions.
What to do with it. First, read the seller’s Residential Real Property Disclosure Report against the finding. The Illinois form (765 ILCS 77/35) asks the seller directly, under penalty of the Act, whether they are aware of “flooding or recurring leakage problems in the crawl space or basement” (item 3), of “material defects in the basement or foundation (including cracks and bulges)” (item 5), and of “leaks or material defects in the roof, ceilings, or chimney” (item 6). The form also says disclosures “do not include previous problems, if any, that the seller reasonably believes have been corrected,” so a “no” beside a painted-over stain is a claim that it was fixed. Ask for the proof of that claim: who did the work, the invoice, the permit if one applied. Under Section 25 of the Act the seller is liable for defects they had actual knowledge of and did not disclose, which is a matter for your attorney, but the paperwork request is yours to make. Our post on spotting what is missing from a Chicago seller disclosure walks through the form line by line.
Second, if the paperwork does not come, treat the item as unrepaired and put it in the notice under 12(b) with a request for a specialist to open it up, or take the credit and open it up yourself after closing. A seller who cannot say who painted the basement wall has told you something.
What should you do next?
If the report is in your inbox: open the summary, make the three piles, and send the safety and major-system piles to your attorney today, because five business days from acceptance is shorter than it sounds. Decide item by item whether you want it repaired, credited, or whether it is a reason to leave, and write repair requests you can verify. If the seller agrees to repairs, put a verification visit in the amendment.
If you have not had the inspection yet, book it for the first day the seller can give access. You can schedule online with real-time availability and the price on screen, weekends included, and read a sample report first so the summary page is familiar when yours arrives.