How would you like to spend another $500 when you sell your home? In addition to thousands of dollars of closing costs you are already responsible for. Well, Illinois HB 1376, also known as the plumber full employment act and introduced by Rep. Luis Arroyo of the 3rd district, will cost you an additional $500 to bring out a plumber to do a sewer camera inspection every time you sell a home. Government gone wild!
I just found out about this sewer camera legislation yesterday through one of those Realtor Call For Actions that we get. Normally those notices irritate me and I ignore them because they are totally self serving for the real estate industry. However, this is a legitimate issue and I thought I should bring it to your attention so that you could let your own house representative know how you feel.
The issue is that today’s buyer already gets a general home inspection. Most of the home inspectors will tell the buyer that if they really want to know what’s going on with the sewer line they can get a sewer camera inspection. It’s at the buyer’s option and expense, which seems reasonable. Buyers almost never take up the suggestion, presumably because it’s not a concern.
There are several problems with requiring this for every sale:
- There aren’t enough plumbers to do all this work. Sure it will create jobs for plumbers but it doesn’t create a lot of value for society.
- If a home is resold in six months you would have to do another inspection. That doesn’t make sense.
- The legislation as currently written doesn’t specify any special treatment of condos. So if two condos in the same building are sold in the same week you would have to inspect the building’s sewer line twice in the same week. What about high rises that sell 20 units a year?
- As written I guess you would have to do this on new construction as well.
- If the buyer really doesn’t care what value is this providing?
- If the buyer does care let the buyer pay for it.
- How often are sewer lines a problem? I haven’t heard of any horror stories.
I have no idea what prompted Luis Arroyo to introduce this legislation. Did he just one day wake up and say “I think every home seller should do a sewer camera inspection”? I can only speculate that either he got burned on a home purchase or some plumber organization got to him.
#SewerInspection #SewerCamera #GovernmentRegulation
If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market, get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry, or you just think I’m the next Kurt Vonnegut you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.