Jason asked me, "Hey Murph, when I buy a property with both well and septic, should I expect to pay for having them inspected by a professional?"
Now this is a great question because most of the time in the Minneapolis area where I am usually working, there is not a lot of well and septic unless you start getting a little bit more rural. Now when I talk about rural, what are we talking about? We're talking about either lake property or we're talking about acreage.
So if you're buying a lake property or you're buying on acreage there's a good chance you're looking at a well and septic system.
Who pays for that?
Usually it's the seller. The reason it's on the seller is because it's the seller's system and as a buyer, and your buyer's agent, I would expect the seller to keep their system compliant and running up to par.
We would ask that the seller pay to have a licensed professional come out and do a well and septic inspection.
What's included in a well and septic inspection?
If you're doing a well inspection, an expert will go down there with a scope and inspect the shaft to make sure it's functioning. But the biggest thing you really want to focus on is the water quality. You can get a water quality test and find out if the water is drinkable and healthy.
What's included in a septic system inspection?
I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because it can get intricate. A septic system has a drainage field and it can get complicated, but basically you're going to make sure that the system is working properly. Make sure the drainage field is set up properly and that it's up to code to avoid issues with the city.
If you have a holding tank, you will want to make sure that it's not leaking. You'll want to make sure that they've pumped it out and it isn't full to the top.
So you definitely want to make sure that the seller is using someone that's qualified to do those home inspections.
