Legally, no. Illinois doesn’t require one, and your lender usually won’t either.

Practically, yes. A house is probably the biggest thing you’ll ever buy, and the inspection is the one point in the process where someone works only for you. It tells you what you’re actually buying: what’s in good shape, what needs a repair before you move in, and what’s going to need money in the next few years. Your attorney can use that to negotiate repairs or credits during the inspection period. Once that period closes, whatever you find is yours to fix.

What about new construction, or a house that looks perfect? Still worth it. New homes get built fast by a lot of different trades, and nobody checks the finished house the way a buyer would. And plenty of problems hide behind fresh paint.

Even if you’ve waived the inspection contingency to win the house, an inspection is still worth doing. You won’t be able to negotiate, but you’ll know what you’re walking into and what to fix first.

We recommend it, but you don’t need to be there for the whole thing. Inspections take three to four hours, and most of that time we’re on ladders, in the attic or under the house, working through a checklist. Come for the last 30 minutes. We’ll show you what we found, where we found it, and what actually matters. It’s the best half hour of the whole process, and you’ll get far more out of it than out of the report alone.

If you can’t make it, that’s fine too. Plenty of buyers are out of town or stuck at work. Your report has photos of everything, and we’re happy to go through it with you on Zoom once you’ve read it.

Please do. Dads ask good questions, and we’d much rather hear them at the house than after closing. We’re on the same side here: we both want you to buy the right house with your eyes open.

Bring him for the walkthrough at the end, and he can look over our shoulder while we show you what we found. If he spots something we didn’t mention, point it out. We’ll take a look, and if it belongs in the report, it goes in.

The risky parts are ours, though. We open the electrical panel, get up on the roof and squeeze into the crawlspace. Dad gets the play-by-play and the photos without the liability.