In St. Paul, MN home sellers are required to have a Truth in housing inspection done. The report is supposed to be on the property so that buyers can review it when they see the home. Often the report isn’t on the property or included in the MLS as a supplement but if there is a report it is available through the city of St. Paul web site. You may have to search the site as the link I included will likely change.
Any property can be looked up and there will be a truth in housing report if one was done and a list of work permits for the property which can be useful information. A buyer can learn what work was done on the house and when and about how much the improvement was worth and they can see that a permit was pulled. I often look to see if permits were pulled for work when the work has that look about it that says the Mr. and his friend did it and they drank a lot of beer too.
Reports on houses that were condemned can also be very useful. I like to give them to the buyers inspector so that he or she can look it over and double check to make sure the work was done correctly. It is amazing how often something is marked as fixed when it wasn’t.
For more information about the truth in housing inspection see the inspections page of the city of St. Paul web site.
I always have checked out potential house on the city website…nothing helps narrow down a home search quicker than finding a list of 150 things that need to be repaired before the city will let you move in. Why am I always attracted to those ones?