Virginia Home Inspection Checklist
The five things to check in any report, plus nine checks that only exist because the house is in Virginia.
This is the Virginia add-on to our national inspection checklist, nine extra checks for caveat emptor disclosure, a new septic inspection law, Chesapeake Bay buffer rules, and karst terrain that don't exist anywhere else. See the general Home Inspection Report Checklist
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- The same five report checks that catch gaps between the walkthrough and the write-up
- Nine Virginia-only checks covering the state's buyer-beware disclosure law, a 2025 septic inspection law, Chesapeake Bay buffer rules, and karst terrain
- Built around Virginia's own caveat emptor doctrine, not a generic list with the state name swapped in
What's inside
5 universal checks + 9 Virginia-only checks. 14 total in the free PDF.
Section A: Universal checks
- Confirm every space you'd expect is actually in the report.Attic, crawl space, basement, electrical panel. If the listing or the inspector mentioned it out loud, it should show up in writing somewhere.
- Check whether the report's length matches how long the inspection took.A three-hour walkthrough that turns into two pages is a mismatch worth a phone call.
- Compare what the inspector said out loud to what ended up in writing.If you took notes during the walkthrough, pull them out and read both side by side.
Section A: Universal checks
Section B: Virginia-only checks
“This gets you far enough to know when to ask a harder question, in Virginia specifically. It won't tell you what to do with a vague septic inspection finding, how to read a karst risk map, or what a finding is actually worth at the negotiating table. That's the difference between noticing a report was softened and knowing what it was softened from. That's Don't Use Their Inspector.”
Sources
- § 55.1-703, Residential Property Disclosure Act | Virginia Law
- House Bill 2671, Septic System Inspection Standards (2025) | Virginia Legislative Information System
- Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area Designation and Management Regulations, 9VAC25-830 | Virginia Law
- Sinkholes and Karst | Virginia Energy, Division of Geology and Mineral Resources
- Pesticide Services | Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
- Home Inspector Licensing Regulations, 18VAC15-40 | Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation
Get the checklist, free
One click to download. The full Don't Use Their Inspector is also free if you want to go deeper.