Two questions on the Georgia disclosure form stop sellers cold, and they're both questions we can answer in one visit.
Georgia's standard seller's disclosure asks how many bedrooms the septic system was approved for and the date of last professional service. Most sellers cannot answer either. The first lives in county permit records; the second lives on a receipt they may not have. We retrieve the records, service the system, and hand back a dated written report that answers both.
Septic is one of the last items to surface in a transaction and one of the most disruptive when it does. A drainfield problem discovered ten days before closing is a renegotiation at best. The information that prevents it is available weeks earlier, and cheaply.
On the South Carolina side, the Residential Property Condition Disclosure Act requires sellers to disclose the condition of the water supply and sanitary sewage disposal system. On the Georgia side, the standard disclosure form asks the two specific questions above, plus whether there are any leaks or backups and whether the dwelling is served by a sewage pump.
FHA requires properties to comply with local health authority standards, and lenders must obtain a local health authority report where mandated. Appraisers must examine the system for signs of failure or surface evidence of malfunction, and if deficiencies are found, repairs or further inspection follow.
VA relies on the appraiser's initial evaluation during the mandatory appraisal. A full inspection by a licensed inspector is triggered only if the appraiser raises a concern about condition, functionality or compliance. Repair responsibility is negotiable between buyer and seller.
Knowing what the system was permitted for, and having a dated service record, turns two hard disclosure questions into filled-in blanks.
South Carolina requires 50 percent of the system size held in reserve. If a previous owner paved or built over it, a buyer's inspector may flag it.
If a bedroom was added without the system being permitted for it, better to know before a buyer's agent finds it.
Cheap, and it produces the dated receipt the disclosure form asks for.
Call or text with the property address and your closing date. We'll tell you what we can do and by when. If we can't hit your date, we'll say so rather than tie up your timeline.
Tell us about the property and what it's doing. We'll come look, tell you straight what it needs, and give you a number you can plan around.