Longer answers to the questions that come up on tours and in inspection reports: hillside lots, townhome paperwork, backyard cottages, old wiring, crawlspaces and the Assessor’s value notice.
Find out if the lot is mapped as a steep slope or landslide-prone critical area, walk the drainage and every retaining wall yourself, and have a geotechnical engineer look at anything that worries you while your inspection period is still open. Those steps tell you what the ground is doing now and what the city will let you build later.
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Do you own the land under a Seattle townhome? How to tell a unit lot from a condominium, and what it changes for maintenance, insurance, loans and resale.
Backyard cottage and ADU rules in Seattle, Bellevue, Kirkland and Redmond, and what to check on a lot before you pay for its ADU potential.
How a buyer can tell whether an older Seattle house is bolted to its foundation, what a retrofit involves, and how to handle it in your inspection period.
Knob-and-tube wiring in an older Seattle house: what inspectors can’t see, the insurance question to settle, rewiring permits and how to negotiate.
How to appeal a King County assessed value: check your property record, gather like-kind sales near January 1, and file with the Board of Equalization.
