Under contract: the inspection period

Once an offer is accepted the contract opens a due-diligence window. The standard Arizona resale contract sets its length, and that length is a term of the agreement you signed rather than a fixed rule — confirm it against your own paperwork the day escrow opens, not against a general timeline. Whatever the exact number turns out to be, this is the most important stretch of the transaction.

This is when you inspect, investigate, read the association documents if there are any, and decide. Your ability to raise items — or to leave — is defined by this period and by what you do inside it.

Treat it as a due-diligence window, not a renegotiation window, because that is how a seller reads what arrives on the other end of it. A notice built around genuine defects the inspection uncovered reads as someone protecting themselves; a notice built around a wish list of upgrades, or a renewed attempt to shave the price, reads as a buyer looking for a second bite at the negotiation — and it tends to get answered that way. The distinction is not just tone. It shapes whether the seller treats your request as reasonable or as leverage to resist.

Attend the general inspection yourself if your schedule allows it. The inspector will walk you through what they find in real time, point at things a written report can only describe, and answer questions a report cannot anticipate. Your agent can attend in your place or alongside you, but the person deciding what to raise with the seller benefits from having seen the property with the inspector rather than only read about it afterward. While the inspector works, use the time to open every closet and cabinet, run the appliances that will convey, test the fixtures, and note anything you want to ask about before the report is finished.

A general inspection covers the structure and its major systems at a broad level, and its findings are what tell you whether a specialist report is worth ordering. Roof, pool and its equipment, HVAC, and sewer or septic each have a trade with its own scope and its own instruments, and a general inspector's opinion on any of them is a starting point rather than the final word. Termite inspection is typically ordered on its own as well, and any specific concern the general inspector flags — a crack pattern, an uneven floor, a sign of settling — is the cue to bring in a structural or foundation engineer rather than guess at the cause yourself. An opinion from the right specialist is worth far more than the deal being decided in the dark.

The BINSR is where the inspection period turns into a written record. It entitles you to ask the seller to address specific items the inspection identified. It does not entitle you to ask for a home in better condition than the one you agreed to buy, and it is not a mechanism for renegotiating price on its own terms. Sort what the report found into what you will ask to be corrected and what you will simply accept, and be able to explain the difference for each item — a failed component is a fair ask, while cosmetic wear you saw in photos before you ever wrote the offer usually is not.

The seller has three ways to answer a BINSR: agree to address what you raised, decline all of it, or propose something in between — a credit, a partial repair, or a different set of items than the ones you asked for. Each answer starts a different next step. Agreement moves you toward scheduling the work and confirming it was done before closing. A decline puts the decision back on you: accept the property as inspected, or exercise whatever right the contract gives you to cancel. A counteroffer opens a second, shorter round of negotiation with its own deadline, and missing that deadline carries the same consequence as missing the first one.

Earnest money is not at risk for simply raising inspection items in good faith and within the period the contract allows. Where it becomes exposed is a cancellation made outside the window, for a reason the contract does not recognize, or after a deadline you let pass. Read the cancellation and earnest-money provisions of your own contract before you invoke them — the point at which a deposit is safe to walk away with, and the point at which it is not, are both written down, and neither one moves because the timeline feels tight.

Reading the report well matters as much as ordering the right ones. A defect is a component that has failed, or is functioning outside its intended design — that is worth raising. A deferred-maintenance note describes something that still works but wants attention on a normal schedule, which is useful context but rarely grounds for a BINSR item on its own. And some language in a report exists mainly to protect the inspector: a recommendation to have a licensed contractor evaluate something the inspector is not licensed or equipped to fully assess. That kind of note is not a diagnosis, and it is not something to dismiss or to panic over — it is an instruction to get the specific answer from the person who can actually give it.

Occasionally a general inspection turns up something that plainly needs a specialist opinion the days left in the window will not accommodate — a scheduling conflict, a report that itself recommends further evaluation, or a finding serious enough that you are not willing to decide without it. Raise the issue with your agent immediately rather than waiting to see if it resolves itself: an extension is something the seller has to agree to, not something you can assume, and the earlier you ask, the more room there is to get one. Where no extension is available, the honest choice is between accepting the uncertainty and exercising your right to cancel rather than closing without an answer you actually needed.