The buyer's inspector flagged a 40-year-old copper repipe on a finished 2.9M house and the buyer wants a 280k credit three days before closing.
The repipe itself was done with permits and the work looks clean on record, but the inspector's report calls the original galvanized sections inadequate and the buyer's attorney is treating the whole system as a defect. The credit ask is 9.6 percent of the contract price, which in a normal flip would end the deal instantly, but at this price point the carry and re-list math changes what walking away actually costs. Say the house is at month eight and burning 28k a month. A re-list adds four months minimum before another qualified buyer closes, so that's 112k in carry, plus a new commission, plus any concession the next buyer extracts after seeing days on market. Against that, 280k is still too much to accept without a counter, but the walkaway number is not zero. The real negotiation is whether the buyer will take a 90k escrow holdback tied to a licensed plumber's scope instead of a cash credit, because that reframes it as a repair question rather than a valuation question. What the buyer's attorney says to that counter tells you whether this is a real concern or a last-minute price renegotiation in inspector's clothing. What did the original pre-purchase inspection say about the plumbing, and did the disclosure documents mention the repipe at all?
