Hi Todd,

Thanks for the response, this was very informative!

I assume this is the buyer's house inspector and that you have some
contract to purchase, someone is holding some earnest money of the
buyer's in escrow, that they've exercised their right to inspect
clause, you've been informed of the inspection findings, and the two
parties have come to an agreement on repairs resulting from the
inspection findings, and that part of that agreement says you'd take
care of the caulking issue?

Exactly.

Who/what says you have to repaint the house now? Surely not because
you as a seller think it looks bad. [...] Assuming the inspection
clause isn't a free for all in
terms of negotiation, your realtor or attorney should go back and
fight with the buyer's agent to say "Look, the inspection terms say
that safety and functionality issues are legitimate discussion points,
the inspection indicated defects in the sealing of the home's siding,
and that functionality issue has been addressed. The seller has, as
agreed had the home professionally caulked. Here's the receipt and
proof of the work being completed. They've held up their end of hte
bargain." And if necessary, crack out "If your client wanted the job
done exactly as they wished, perhaps a cash settlement offer for the
repairs would have been a better choice to represent your buyers. Are
you willing to risk your client's earnest money for your error in
advice?"

Wow, I hadn't really looked at it in this way before. I had just
assumed it wouldn't be acceptable, and and my realtor was talking about
hiring a handy-man to fix it up. I have to admit, however, that part
of the deal is that we're also trying to close on the purchase of our
new house the same day, and so I don't want anything to screw that up.
But if we really have satisfied the functionality issue, and asthetics
really don't matter after the buyer has made his offer, then that would
be great if it isn't our problem anymore! I will certainly bring this
up with our realtor.

I would expect that reasonable practice would be to match the color of
the trim or that of the siding or to use clear.

Yes, this is what I was expecting, which I think makes the contractors
comment of having to specify clear caulking a little bogus. I am
especially curious to call several other siding contractors now to find
out what they would do in similar situations.

But all the same,
getting a contractor at this point to not only redo the job because
you failed to specify that you wanted clear caulk is going to be a
hell of a fight. Cus not only will they need ot recaulk, they need to
dig out all the crap they've just recently laid down. You're in for
an uphill battle there I'm afraid. Imagine if you were the siding guy
and had a customer complaining about a color choice after the fact?

Yes, I can see that, poor as the contractor may be in comparison to
others, he technically got the job done, and so I don't have much
recourse for getting him to do anything about the caulk color.


More importantly though, has the buyer of your home weighed in on
their thoughts or threaten to bail over this?

No, I am not even sure if the buyer is aware of the situation yet. So
far we haven't had any direct back & forth with him except through the
paperwork and via our realtor, but it sounds like it would be a good
idea to find out what he thinks about it. We just don't want him to
back out at this point (several days before closing).


If you scrutinize the contract to purchase, and whatever (hopefully
written?) agreement you've arrived upon regarding repair items,
you'll probably find that by having caulk of any sort put on puts you
in the clear. If they said "we want this inspection finding fixed"
and you have the joint professionally caulked, then you may be done.
Keep in mind that in its current state, if the licensed inspector were
to reinspect the property, with the new caulk in place, they couldn't
legitimately write it up anymore--because the functionality and safety
issue has been addressed. Inspectors don't have checkboxes for
"doesn't look right."

Basically, it comes down to whatever agreements you have in writing.
In short, this may not be your problem to solve at this point.

Be sure to post how it all turns out!

Thanks again for the suggestions! We're just purchasing our 2nd house,
so this is all still pretty new to us. I'll certainly let you know how
it goes.

Thanks,
Matt