Most closings that slip don’t slip over money. The rate is locked, the buyer is approved, the moving truck is booked. Then the appraisal comes back “subject to” a short list of repairs, and a deal that was ready to go is suddenly waiting on a stair railing.
That phrase is worth understanding. When the appraiser on an FHA or VA loan (and sometimes a conventional one) sees a condition that affects safety, soundness or the occupants’ health, the value is written on the condition that it gets fixed. The lender won’t fund until someone confirms the work is done. Usually that means the appraiser comes back out and fills in a short completion report, Fannie Mae’s Form 1004D or Freddie Mac’s Form 442. That second visit carries its own fee, commonly in the $100 to $250 range, and it happens on the appraiser’s calendar, not yours.
None of the five items below is a big job. That’s the frustrating part. Each one is a few hours of work that, found late, can cost a week.
1. Peeling paint on a house built before 1978
This is the one that surprises sellers most. FHA and VA both tell appraisers to assume that any cracking, chipping or peeling paint on a pre-1978 house contains lead. The VA’s handbook calls it “an immediate hazard that must be corrected.” It doesn’t matter if the peeling is on a bedroom window sill, a porch ceiling or the garage door trim. If the appraiser sees it, it goes on the list.
Newer houses get a little more slack. On homes built after 1978, FHA treats peeling interior paint as cosmetic. Failing exterior paint that leaves wood open to the weather still has to be fixed.
How to handle it: Walk the outside of the house and look hard at window sills, door trim, porch floors and the underside of porch ceilings. Then check the sills inside. On a pre-1978 home, the scraping has to be done by an EPA lead-safe certified firm. That’s federal law for anyone paid to disturb that paint, not a matter of preference. We don’t scrape pre-1978 paint ourselves, and we’ll say so on the quote, so the seller can book a certified painter early instead of in closing week. On newer homes, scraping, priming and repainting failing trim is routine work for us.
2. Rot you can push a screwdriver into
A soft bottom step. A deck board that gives underfoot. A window sill or door threshold that’s gone spongy. New England weather is hard on exposed wood, and appraisers are told to look for it. The VA’s property requirements name dry rot and decay specifically, and FHA requires repair of anything that affects the soundness or safety of the house. A rotted stair tread manages to be both.
How to handle it: Do the screwdriver test on steps, sills, trim corners and the bottom of door frames. If the tip sinks in, plan to replace the wood rather than fill it. Filler over soft wood rarely survives a careful inspector, and it never survives the next winter. We’ve rebuilt rotted porch steps in Weare and reframed a rotted wall base in Salem for exactly this reason. On a listing, swapping a few treads or a run of trim is usually a day or less.
3. Loose or missing handrails
A railing that moves when you grab it. Basement stairs with no rail at all. Porch steps where the rail stops two treads short of the ground. FHA’s handbook lists “missing handrails that do not pose a threat to safety” as cosmetic, which sounds forgiving until you remember that the appraiser decides what’s a threat. A full flight of stairs with no rail, or a rail that pulls away from the wall, usually is. Home inspectors write these up almost every time, so even a conventional buyer will often put it on the repair request.
How to handle it: Grab every railing in the house and give it a real shake. Loose brackets usually need to be re-anchored into framing, not just re-screwed into drywall. A missing rail on a short set of exterior steps is often a few hours of work.
4. The ceiling stain from a leak that’s already fixed
A brown ring on the ceiling under an upstairs bathroom, or in the corner below a roof valley. The leak may have been fixed years ago, but nobody looking at the stain can know that. FHA and VA both expect the roof to keep moisture out, and a stain looks like proof it doesn’t. That can turn into a request for a roofer’s inspection or some kind of evidence the leak is resolved, which often takes longer to arrange than the repair itself.
How to handle it: If the source is still leaking, that’s a job for a roofer or a plumber, and their invoice is the paper you’ll want in the file. Once the source is confirmed dry, the stain is ours to deal with: a stain-blocking primer, a drywall patch if the paper has gone soft, and a repaint of the whole ceiling so there’s no telltale square. We did exactly this on a sunroom ceiling in Kingston. Keep the roofer’s or plumber’s paperwork together with ours so the story is easy to tell.
5. Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms
Cheap, fast, and still one of the most common lines on a repair request. Alarms chirping for a battery, alarms past the replacement date printed on the back, or no alarms in the bedrooms at all.
In New Hampshire, RSA 153:10-a requires smoke and carbon monoxide detection in single-family homes built or substantially rehabilitated since January 1, 2010 (the CO requirement applies when there’s an attached garage or a fuel-burning appliance), and in rental units and multi-unit buildings. VA appraisers and nearly every home inspector check for them regardless of when the house was built. Your local fire department can tell you whether the town has its own requirements at sale.
How to handle it: Pull each alarm and read the date on the back. The national fire code calls for replacing smoke alarms ten years from the manufacture date, and CO alarms have their own replacement date printed on them. Make sure there’s one on every level, inside each bedroom, and outside each sleeping area. A like-for-like swap of hardwired alarms is quick work.
Keeping these out of closing week
The best time to deal with all five is before the sign goes up. A walkthrough with these five in mind doesn’t take long, and ours are free. Fixing them up front costs the same as fixing them later, just without the deadline.
If the list arrives after the inspection or the appraisal instead, three things keep it moving:
- Send the pages right away. The inspection or appraisal pages, plus photos if you have them. Clear items can often be quoted from those alone.
- Ask the loan officer what proof they want. Some lenders will accept an itemized invoice and dated photos for certain repairs. Fannie Mae’s guidelines allow photos and other alternatives to an in-person revisit in some cases. Others will want the appraiser back no matter what. Knowing which one you’re dealing with on day one tells you how much time you really have.
- Book the re-inspection as soon as the work has a finish date. Don’t wait until the work is done to call. The appraiser’s schedule is usually the slowest part of the chain.
Every job we do ends with an itemized invoice and a photo Job Report showing what was done, which is exactly the paper an underwriter or an appraiser asks for. If you have a listing coming up or a repair list sitting in your inbox, send it our way, or text the pages to (603) 479-1094.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Single Family Housing Policy Handbook 4000.1, appraiser repair requirements and defective paint guidance.
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Lenders Handbook (VA Pamphlet 26-7), Chapter 12, Minimum Property Requirements.
- Fannie Mae Selling Guide, B4-1.2-05, Requirements for Verifying Completion and Postponed Improvements (Form 1004D).
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Rule.
- New Hampshire RSA 153:10-a, Smoke Detectors and Carbon Monoxide Detection Devices.
- National Fire Protection Association, NFPA 72, smoke alarm replacement guidance.
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