Home Inspections for Home Sellers, Part One

If you’re planning on selling a home in the Minneapolis or Saint Paul area, there is a good chance you will need to have a home inspection done before you sell your house (possibly several).   There are two types of home inspections, private and city.  Today, we’ll talk about city inspections. 

City inspections are required in 13 metro cities, including Minneapolis and Saint Paul.  Click Download presale_inspection_requirements_0907.pdf  for a full list with specific requirements for each city.  These are inspections that must be done by a city employee or sub-contractor for the city before the house is sold, and in many cities, before the house is even offered for sale.  Some cities, such as Saint Louis Park, do code compliance inspections and require repairs to be made on things that aren’t up to code.  Other cities, such as Maplewood, require only a disclosure report, and no repairs ever need to be done.

These reports are commonly referred to as Truth in Housing, Time of Sale, or Point of Sale inspections, among many other terms.  I am calling these ‘city inspections’ for lack of a better term – it would be nice if every city could call their inspections the same thing.  While on that topic, it would also be nice if every city had the same requirements!  In Minneapolis , you need a working smoke detector on every level of the home.  Bloomington requires the same, plus a working detector in every bedroom.  In Saint Paul, you only need one working smoke detector in the home, but it needs to be hardwired. 

If you’re selling a home in the metro area, check with your realtor or home inspector to see if you need to have a city inspection done on your home, and discuss with your inspector ways to get your house ready for the inspection.  Next week, we’ll talk about some generic things that most cities require for the city inspections.

Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections – Email – Website