In article , "iwdplz" wrote:
My brother is purchasing a home in Vermont and the following is holding up
the negotiations after home inspection; he's trying to decide if the seller
should pay for this (whether it's worth the risk in the negotiation because
my brother has already negotiated a rock bottom deal on the house). The
custom home was built in 1999. The general home inspector says that since
the main panel in the basement doesn't have a main breaker, it is a code
violation.

Unless there is a specific *local* code requiring that, the inspector is FOS.

Instead the main breaker is outside near the pole

That is *explicitly permitted* by the National Electrical Code: "The service
disconnecting means shall be installed at a readily accessible location either
outside of a building or structure or inside nearest the point of entrance of
the service conductors." [2008 NEC, Article 230.70(A)(1)]

which the home
inspector is calling a "supplementary disconnect."

Nonsense.

He says the main panel
needs to be replaced which would cost thousands.

Let me guess: this "inspector" is *also* a general contractor, right? And he's
probably already offered to make your brother a good price on the job, right?
Which, when you get competing bids, will turn out to not be such a good
priceafter all.

He didn't tell us what NEC
code section was violated so we asked him

This should be fun. g

but it will take a few days for
him to retrieve this info,

snort No doubt it will. I imagine that *if* he ever answers, he'll say
something along the lines of "I can't find the exact paragraph, but I know
it's a violation, just trust me on this, I have __ years in this business and
I know what I'm doing and blah blah blah blah".

but seller and buyer are anxious to proceed
sooner.

So ignore it, and close the sale. Even if the inspector were right -- which he
definitely is NOT -- it doesn't matter. Real estate contracts are nearly
always contingent on the home passing an inspection, but that's mostly so that
a buyer isn't committed to buying a house that has a previously unknown
(or undisclosed) serious flaw, with no way to back out of the contract. If the
buyer is aware of the flaw and wants to buy the house anyway, so what? *Any*
provision of *any* contract can be changed if all of the parties to the
contract agree to the change. Your brother can probably *unilaterally* waive
the inspection contingency clause; there's certainly no reason why the seller
should object, so even if both of them must agree to the waiver in writing,
obtaining the seller's signature should be only a formality.

I reviewed relevant sections of the 2008 NEC and it says that it is fine to
have the main disconnect outside the house and the NEC chapter on the
disconnects didn't say that the disconnect has to be inside the main panel
which is attached to the home. I understand that in some installations the
main disconnect is placed separately outside so that firefighters can get to
it.

Exactly so.

Is there a code violation that my brother should ask the seller to remedy?

None that I can see.

I am not sure how the electrical inspector could miss something so basic
when the home was built in 1999. That makes me wonder if the general home
inspector is correct or not.

The electrical inspector didn't miss something. Like I said before, the home
inspector is FOS.

Or was there an update to the NEC in the past
few years?

It wouldn't matter even if there was. Electrical installations are required to
comply with the Code that is in effect at the time the work is done, not with
whatever Code changes might occur later.

What section/paragraph is not in compliance?

None.