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SellersNo. Under a standard California purchase agreement the seller is not obligated to make any repair or issue any credit. The buyer's only remedy is to cancel under the investigation contingency and recover the deposit. That makes a repair request a negotiation with a deadline, not an invoice you owe.
The inspection happened on day eight. On day eleven a document arrives with fourteen items on it and a dollar figure at the bottom. Most sellers read that list the way they would read a quote from a contractor, and that single misreading drives almost every bad outcome that follows.
Here is what I see go wrong, in the order it usually goes wrong.
Mistake one: treating the list as a demand instead of an opening
A buyer's agent writes a repair request the same way you wrote your list price. High, with room in it. Fourteen items does not mean fourteen problems. It usually means the inspector flagged fourteen things and nobody sorted them yet.
Compare the two readings. A seller who reads it as a bill responds emotionally and either caves on everything or refuses on principle. A seller who reads it as an opening position sorts it first and then answers a much smaller list. The second seller keeps more money and loses fewer deals.
Mistake two: answering all of it at once
Sort every item into three buckets before you respond to anything:
- Not optional. Lender required items. Health and safety conditions, active leaks, exposed wiring, and on a VA loan the property standards and Section 1 pest clearance California requires. These get done or the loan does not fund.
- Real defects. Things a future buyer's inspector will also find, which means you are now on notice and will be disclosing them either way.
- The wish list. Cosmetic items, deferred maintenance consistent with the home's age, and anything the buyer could see standing in the driveway.
The third bucket is where your negotiating room lives. The second bucket is where sellers get stubborn and should not, since a defect you decline today follows you to the next buyer. There is a full post on the blog covering exactly how that works after a deal falls apart.
Mistake three: offering a credit without asking what loan they have
This is the expensive one, and it catches experienced sellers.
A credit toward closing costs is capped by the buyer's loan program, and it can never exceed what the buyer actually owes in closing costs. Credit a buyer $15,000 when they have $9,000 in closing costs and the extra $6,000 does not reach them. It is not paid out in cash and it cannot go toward the down payment. You gave away money that helped nobody.
| Buyer's loan | Concession cap | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Conventional, under 10% down | 3% of price or appraised value, whichever is less | On a $900,000 sale, roughly $27,000 ceiling |
| Conventional, 10% or more down | 6%, rising to 9% at 25% down | More room, though rarely needed |
| FHA | 6% regardless of down payment | Calculated on the lesser of price or appraised value |
| VA | 4% on concessions specifically | You may also pay ordinary closing costs on top with no cap |
Before you name a credit figure, have your agent ask what the buyer's total closing costs actually are. Whether a credit or a price reduction serves the buyer better is its own question, and there is a breakdown of that math already on the blog from the buyer's side.
Mistake four: doing the work yourself to save money
Every seller considers this and roughly half regret it.
A licensed repair with an invoice closes the item. An unpermitted repair you did over a weekend does three things instead. It gets reinspected and often fails. It becomes a disclosure item on a form you sign. And if the buyer walks anyway, you now own a half finished repair and a written record that you attempted it.
Compare that against a credit of the same size. The credit is final, it requires no follow up inspection, and it carries no warranty exposure. For anything structural, electrical, plumbing, or roof related, the credit is almost always the cheaper instrument even when the dollar figure looks larger.
Pro Tip: Ask for the inspection report itself, not just the repair request. The report tells you what the inspector actually wrote, which is frequently softer than how the request characterizes it. "Recommend evaluation by a licensed contractor" is not the same sentence as "foundation damage," and sellers have paid real money for the difference.
Mistake five: answering before you know where the buyer stands
The calendar decides more than the list does. California contracts commonly default to a seventeen day investigation period counted in calendar days from the day after acceptance, and these negotiations typically resolve inside five to ten business days.
A buyer on day nine with two weeks of contingency left is in a different position than a buyer on day sixteen who has already removed their loan and appraisal contingencies. Contingencies in California do not expire on their own, so check which removals have actually been signed before you decide how firm to be.
Also worth knowing what you are risking. Cancellations have been running near thirteen percent of contracts recently against a historical average closer to five. The buyer walking is not a bluff you can dismiss out of hand this year. Neither is it automatic, and a buyer who paid for an inspection and an appraisal has real money in the deal too.
Ask the Buyer's Agent This
Two questions, word for word, through your agent before you respond:
- "What are your buyer's total closing costs, so any credit we discuss actually reaches them?"
- "Which of these items is the lender requiring, and which is your buyer requesting?"
The first keeps you from overpaying into a cap. The second separates the bucket you cannot negotiate from the bucket where the whole conversation lives.
If you are staring at a repair request right now and trying to work out what to concede, reach out and we can sort the list together before you send anything back. You can also reach me at (619) 485-8293.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a seller have to make repairs after a home inspection?
Not under a standard California agreement. The exception is anything the buyer's lender requires, since that item gets completed or the loan does not fund. Everything else is negotiable, including refusing entirely.
Can I just say no to the whole list?
You can. Whether you should depends on where the buyer sits in their contingency period, how your home has been performing on market, and what a replacement buyer's inspection is likely to find. A defect does not disappear when a buyer does.
Is a credit better than doing the repairs?
Usually, for anything a licensed trade would touch. Credits are final and carry no warranty exposure. Repairs you complete become disclosure items and get reinspected. The exception is lender required work, where a credit does not substitute and the repair must be finished before funding.
Does this work differently with a VA buyer?
The property standards are stricter and certain items must be completed rather than credited, which matters in San Diego North County where veterans, military buyers relocating on PCS orders, and first-time buyers using a VA loan make up a large share of the buyer pool. There is a separate post on the blog covering what a VA offer costs a seller line by line.
What did your buyer ask you to fix?
I am genuinely curious about this one. Some of the requests coming across my desk this year have been reasonable and some have been remarkable. If you have been through it, tell me what was on your list and what you ended up agreeing to. That answer is usually more instructive than anything I can write here. You can find more seller side breakdowns on the blog.
Contract timelines reflect common California residential purchase agreement defaults and can be changed by negotiation. Concession limits are set by loan programs and are subject to change. This content is for informational purposes only and is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Confirm concession caps with the buyer's lender and consult a qualified attorney on contract questions. All real estate services comply with NAR, HUD, and California DRE regulations.
