Walk through/closing question - anyone bring a professional with you to ensure everything in "working" order?

Our engineer said he always suggests bringing a service contract person (from national grid or something) to take a look at the heating/cooling systerm to give you a heads up as to if everything is in good working order - he said sometimes there can be cracks inside the heating that would cost $$$ to fix and the sellers would then be responsible b/c it would not be in working order as per the contract. Is this something anyone has done? TIA!

Re: Walk through/closing question - anyone bring a professional with you to ensure everything in "working" order?

We didn't do that, doesn't sound like a bad idea though...

Re: Walk through/closing question - anyone bring a professional with you to ensure everything in "working" order?

We didn't bring anyone like that. We went with our RE agent, and their RE agent was there too. I insisted on trying out every toilet, every sink, and the heating both upstairs and down and my RE agent made me feel like that was dumb. She said that if there were any problems, the inspector would have found them. Turns out there was tens of thousands of dollars of damage the inspector didn't notice, btw, but that's a different story... anyway... I think it's unusual to bring an inspector or utility person to a walkthrough. By that point, you're buying the house within 24 hours.

Re: Walk through/closing question - anyone bring a professional with you to ensure everything in "working" order?

My thought process is it's a walkthrough, if anything is broken that you didn't pick up on with the engineer you can't really do anything about it, except for lets say a broken appliance that was working when the engineer was there...

Re: Walk through/closing question - anyone bring a professional with you to ensure everything in "working" order?

I've never heard of doing that. I view the final walk through as an opportunity to make sure that nothing has changed since the inspection was done (no pipes burst, no appliances broken, etc.), not a chance to re-do the inspection (or investigate problems that were raised during the inspection. Sometimes inspectors will recommend follow up with a specialist because of something that they see in the inspection, but that would be done long before the final walk through.

At the walk through, you just want to make sure that everything in the house is as represented on the listing, and that the house is in the same basic condition as when you agreed on your price with the seller.

If during the final walk through, you notice something is wrong with something that should be included in the sale -- e.g., a broken dishwasher -- your attorney will typically negotiate a credit for that item with the seller's attorney. That's the typical solution, so that the closing can proceed. But at this point, there's usually no in-depth investigation into major systems (such as heat and plumbing), other than to check that those systems are working. Those things should be addressed at the home inspection and through any recommended follow up/investigation.

Re: Walk through/closing question - anyone bring a professional with you to ensure everything in "working" order?

My DH and I felt that we wanted someone with a bit more knowledge on our side during the final walkthough. I would have had my father come except he lives on the other side of the country. DH isn't handy and I don't know much about the heating, electric, etc. We hired our engineer to come with us on the final walkthrough, not for a full inspection, but just to check to see if the electrical issues had been repaired and to see if there were any obvious concerns. He pointed out a puddle of water at the base of the furnace which could have been a problem. Our seller started freaking out. The furnace was cranked up (they had moved most of the stuff out a few days earlier) and it was determined that it wasn't a cracked boiler, just condensation leakage. The seller was a horror show so we wanted someone on our side to make sure everything was OK. The closing was a couple of days after the walkthrough and the lousy thing was that the sellers went back and took stuff out of the house that should have remained after the walkthrough. Anything bolted to the walls was supposed to remain but we came back after the closing to find that they had unbolted bathroom mirrors, curtain rods, etc. and taken them after the walkthrough. I'd recommend doing the walkthrough as soon before the closing as possible.