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Fresno Termite Control

The honest answer first

No California law forces you to hand a buyer a termite clearance to sell a house. Read that again, because half the advice sellers get starts from the opposite assumption. What sellers keep running into is something that works almost like a law in practice: the buyer’s lender wants the wood-destroying organism picture resolved, the buyer’s agent writes an inspection into the offer, and suddenly a “voluntary” clearance is standing between you and closing. That gap between legal requirement and practical requirement is why sellers get conflicting answers, including from people who should know better, and why the useful question isn’t “is it required” but “who in my transaction will require it.”

In most Fresno-area transactions, the sequence is routine. A WDO inspection happens during escrow, findings get negotiated, the required work gets done and certified, and the sale closes. The machinery for it is well worn — the escrow inspection page covers the service itself, and this guide covers the questions sellers actually have: who requires what, who pays, and how not to let a fascia board delay your closing.

Who actually requires a clearance

Start with lenders, because they carry the most weight. Loans backed by government programs (FHA and VA are the familiar ones) commonly expect active infestation and damage to be resolved before funding, and even conventional lenders can require it when the appraisal or report flags a problem. The lender isn’t sentimental about it; an unresolved termite finding is collateral risk, and the loan doesn’t move until the file says otherwise.

Buyers are the second source. A termite inspection contingency is standard practice in California purchase agreements, and what the buyer does with the findings is negotiation, not statute. A cash buyer can waive the whole subject; a first-time buyer stretched to the edge of their loan usually can’t and won’t. Sellers sometimes discover that the “requirement” was never the lender at all, just a buyer who wanted the work done and had the leverage to ask.

The report itself gives everyone shared language. A California WDO report splits findings into two sections, and the split is what gets negotiated. Section 1 covers the live problems: active infestation, active fungus, and the damage they’ve caused. Section 2 covers conditions likely to lead to problems, like earth-to-wood contact or a slow plumbing leak. “Clearance” in everyday use means the Section 1 items are done and certified, with a completion certificate in the escrow file to prove it.

How a clearance moves through escrow

  1. 1

    Order the WDO inspection early

    The report enters the file in the first weeks of escrow, while there's still time to act on it.

  2. 2

    Report goes to all parties

    Findings arrive split into Section 1 (active infestation and damage) and Section 2 (conditions likely to lead to it).

  3. 3

    Negotiate who handles what

    Buyer and seller allocate the Section 1 work and any Section 2 items the deal will cover.

  4. 4

    Work done and certified

    Completed items get a certificate escrow and the lender accept, and the file closes clean.

Selling with a closing date? Order the escrow inspection early. Late findings are what threaten deals.

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Who pays, and why early ordering protects you

It’s negotiated, full stop. Nothing in California assigns termite costs to either side by rule. That said, the long-standing convention in this market is that sellers handle Section 1 items (the active problems) and Section 2 items go to negotiation, often landing on the buyer or simply getting disclosed and waived. Conventions bend with the market: when buyers are scarce, sellers absorb more; when offers stack up, sellers concede less. Credits in lieu of repairs are common too, when the lender allows them and the buyer would rather control the work. Treat any “that’s just how it’s done” claim as an opening position.

Timing is the seller’s real leverage, and it’s underused. A report ordered early in escrow gives you options: get competing bids on the work, negotiate credits from strength, or fix items on your own schedule. The same report surfacing two weeks before closing gives you none of those, because every day of delay now threatens the buyer’s rate lock and everyone’s moving plans. Sellers who order first keep control of the story the report tells.

Clearance repairs, done so escrow believes them

Section 1 work is usually unglamorous: replace a run of chewed fascia, treat the garage gallery, fix the subfloor where a leak fed the problem. What makes it escrow-grade is the paper. The work has to match the report’s findings item for item and end in a completion certificate the lender will accept, which is why repairs done by the same company that wrote the report close files faster than repairs a handyman did somewhere in between. A perfectly good repair with no certificate behind it is, for escrow purposes, a finding still open. When the certificate and the findings line up exactly, nobody at the escrow desk has questions, and the escrow inspection that started the process is also what documents its finish. Sellers who keep that chain tight rarely think about termites again between report and closing.

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