As of today (June 1st), home sellers in the city of Austin are required to have an energy audit. Sounds good, right? I mean, after all, I definitely would be looking for an energy-efficient home if I were in the market.

Except…why should it be mandatory, and why should the seller have to be the one to pay for it?

Seems like it should be in the category of a home inspection, where it’s the buyer’s responsibility to check out the home and make sure it suits their needs. A seller might want to have the energy audit done to market their home, but it seems unreasonable to slap a $200+ requirement on a home seller when they’re already forking out realtors’ commissions.

There are exceptions, of course…like, if your home’s less than ten years old or if you’ve done a certain number of energy-efficiency improvements on your home within a certain period of time, it’s a foreclosure/short sell, blah, blah, blah.

Just sort of chapped me this morning when I heard about it.