The Termite Inspection Step in a Horry County Closing in Conway, SC

Three parties at the table, three different questions

Everyone in the transaction calls it the same thing, and none of them wants the same thing from it. The buyer is asking whether the structure has been eaten, whether anything is eating it now, and what the repair bill looks like if it has. That is a question about condition and about money, and it is answered by the findings and the diagram rather than by the word on the front of the form.

The seller is asking a narrower question: does anything on this report give the other side a reason to renegotiate late. The lender is asking the narrowest question of all. It wants a properly issued, currently dated document from a licensed operator in the file before it funds, and in most cases it will accept treatment and paperwork as the answer where a finding exists. Understanding those three positions is what stops a set of findings from turning into an argument, because each party can usually get what it needs without the others losing.

Closing files that cross the desk in Conway often cover buyers relocating from a drive away — a retiree trading Litchfield Beach for less upkeep, or a family moving off Front Street historic district toward a quieter lot near Horry-Georgetown Technical College. Whatever the origin, the lender's requirement travels with the property, not the buyer, so a house near the Conway bypass gets the same scrutiny as one closer to the coast. The licensed pros we connect you with know that distinction and price the inspection accordingly.

• Buyer: what is in the wood, is it active, what does the repair cost, and who is standing behind it afterwards
• Seller: is this going to reopen a price that was already agreed, and can it be closed out with treatment and receipts
• Lender: is there a current report from a licensed operator in the file, and is any required work documented
• Closing attorney: is the file complete, is the report inside its validity, and is the bond paperwork transferred

Where it lands in the closing calendar

Timing is the part that goes wrong, and it goes wrong in a predictable direction. People treat the wood inspection as a formality and book it late, then discover it was never a formality at all. A finding needs time: time to get a treatment scheduled, time for a contractor to look at a soft joist, time for the two sides to agree who is paying, and time for an updated document to be issued. Ordering in the first days of the inspection window buys all of that. Ordering in closing week buys a delayed closing.

There is a second reason to move early on a coastal house. Crawl space findings often need somebody other than the pest company. Moisture, a sagging vapor barrier, a failed pier or rot at the band joist pull in a contractor or a crawl space specialist, and those trades book out. On a Conway house with a crawl space, treat the inspection as the start of a chain rather than a box to tick.

Where a Conway closing lands on the calendar also depends on which trades are already stretched thin that month. Crawl space contractors booked out toward Forestbrook and the Forestbrook Road corridor carry the same backlog as anyone working near the Intracoastal-feeding creeks, and pier work near Garden City or North Myrtle Beach competes for the same limited crews. A buyer's agent who checks availability before setting the inspection date avoids a closing that stalls on a subcontractor's schedule rather than the report itself.

Who pays, and how that actually gets settled

There is no statewide rule handing the bill to one side. Custom along this coast leans toward the seller covering the inspection on a financed sale, on the reasoning that the seller is the one being asked to prove the condition of what they are selling, but plenty of contracts put it on the buyer and plenty of deals split it. What decides it is the line in your contract, so read that line before anybody argues from habit.

The larger money question is not the inspection fee, it is who pays for what the inspection finds. Treatment and repair are separate items and they get handled differently. Treatment is a known, priced job, so it is usually settled by the seller having it done and handing over the paperwork. Repair is open-ended, which is why it tends to get resolved as a credit at closing or a price adjustment instead. A buyer who wants repairs done by the seller before closing should also want to name who is doing them and see the invoice, because a cheap patch on a structural member is worse than no patch.

• An inspection on a financed Conway sale commonly runs an estimated $75 to $150, a guide figure rather than a quote
• A full liquid soil treatment on a crawl space house is quoted by linear foot, so the size of the footprint decides it
• A bait system installation is priced separately again and carries its own yearly renewal
• Repair of damaged framing is a contractor's job and never appears on a pest company's invoice

What the inspector is looking at on the day

A good inspection on a house like this spends most of its time low down. The operator gets into the crawl space with a light and a probe and works the piers, the sill, the band joist, the girders and the subfloor, tapping and probing for soft spots and looking for mud tubes running up block and pier faces. Outside, the walk covers the grade line, wood in contact with soil, porch and deck posts, stoops and steps, siding sitting too close to the ground, and any place a slab meets framing. In the garage and utility spaces the check is for old damage that has been painted over.

Two conditions get particular attention on the coast. The first is water: standing water, a torn vapor barrier, a sweating line, a downspout dumping beside a pier. The second is anything the operator cannot reach, because that gets noted as inaccessible rather than guessed at. If insulation, ductwork, stored boxes or a sealed-off section blocks the view, the report says so, and a buyer should read that note as carefully as the findings themselves.

The report has findings. Nobody needs to panic yet.

Findings are common on houses here and most of them are manageable. The first thing to sort out is which of three things you are looking at. Old, inactive evidence with no current activity is a history lesson, and it matters only where somebody damaged the structure and never fixed it. Active infestation is a present problem with a known answer, which is treatment plus a look at whatever condition invited it. Damage is the third and separate item, and it is the only one that reliably costs real money, because it involves wood that has to be replaced by someone who works in wood.

The productive move at that point is a second opinion on scope, not a fight over blame. Ask the operator to walk you through the diagram and show you where each note came from. Ask whether the damage is cosmetic, whether anything is load bearing, and whether a contractor needs to look at it. Then decide what you are asking the seller for: treatment with paperwork, a credit toward repair, or both. Deals rarely die on termite findings. They die on findings discovered too late for anyone to do anything about.

If the report shows active termites, the termite treatment page explains the inspection, treatment, and ongoing protection available before and after closing.

• Ask for the diagram to be explained out loud, area by area, before you respond to anything
• Separate treatment from repair in every conversation, because they are different trades and different numbers
• Get a contractor to look at anything described as damage to framing, and get the opinion in writing
• If a moisture reading is high, ask what is causing it, since a wet crawl space keeps producing findings until the water is dealt with
• Ask whether the treatment being proposed comes with a bond, and on what terms

The bond already on the house

Plenty of Horry County houses come with termite paperwork already in place, and it is worth finding out early rather than at the closing table. Ask the listing side three things: which company holds it, whether it is current, and whether it covers re-treatment only or also covers repair. Bonds are commonly transferable to a new owner, usually for a fee and often subject to an inspection, but transfer is a step somebody has to actually take. It does not happen because the house changed hands.

The other reason to ask early is that an existing bond can save the buyer a considerable amount. A house with continuous coverage and a documented treatment history is in a different position from one with no records at all. If the paperwork has lapsed, expect the company to want a fresh inspection, and possibly a fresh treatment, before it will write anything new.

Sellers: the two weeks before the sign goes up

A seller who books their own inspection before listing is buying information, and information early is always cheaper than information late. If something is found, it gets treated on a normal schedule at a normal price, with receipts, and it becomes a line in the listing rather than a lever in a negotiation. If nothing is found, you know that too, and you can hand a buyer a clean recent document instead of waiting to see what theirs says.

Before the inspection, do the housekeeping that lets the operator see the structure. Clear a path to the crawl space hatch and unlock it. Move stored boxes off the garage walls and away from the sill. Pull mulch back off the siding. Cut back shrubs blocking the foundation. Fix the dripping hose bib. None of that hides anything, and none of it should: an inaccessible note on a report is a question the buyer will ask anyway, and it is better answered by access than by explanation.