WDO reports written around your closing date
For buyers and sellers with a deadline, and for the Bakersfield agents who order these reports every month.
An escrow termite inspection in Bakersfield serves two customers at once. The first is the buyer or seller who will do this once, has a closing date circled on the calendar, and mostly wants to know the house won’t blow up the deal. The second is the real-estate agent who orders these reports month after month and wants a vendor who never becomes the reason a file stalls.
Both get the same product: a wood-destroying organism inspection, the WDO report it produces, and the follow-through work escrow may require. What makes escrow work different from a routine termite check isn’t the inspecting. It’s the deadline. Every step, from the inspection date to the completion paperwork, has to land inside a timeline someone else set.
So the practical advice is the same for everyone: order early. An inspection in the first week of escrow leaves room to negotiate findings, schedule treatment or repairs, and paper the file. The same report ordered ten days before closing turns every small finding into a fire drill.
What’s in a WDO report
A WDO report covers wood-destroying organisms, which in practice means termites, dry rot fungus, and the beetles and conditions that come with them. The inspector documents what was found, where, and what should happen about it.
In California, the report splits findings into two sections, and the split is what everyone negotiates around. Section 1 covers active problems: live termites, visible damage, fungus at work. These are the items lenders care about, because the damage is real today. Section 2 covers conditions likely to lead to infestation: earth-to-wood contact, moisture against framing, a shower leaking into a subfloor. Nothing is eating the house yet, but the door is open.
The report also states what was actually inspected. WDO inspections cover the accessible parts of the structure: attic, crawl space or slab perimeter, garage, and exterior wood. Areas nobody can reach, a furniture- packed storage room, an inaccessible attic corner, get noted as such rather than guessed at, and detached structures are included or excluded by agreement when the report is ordered. Reading that scope section keeps buyers from assuming more was checked than was checkable.
Two more documents matter in a sale. A completion certificate (often called a clearance) documents that the Section 1 work was finished. And government-backed loans, the FHA and VA type, commonly expect that clearance before funding. The termite clearance guide explains when a sale actually needs one and when it doesn’t.
How an escrow inspection typically runs
- 1
Order the inspection
Buyer, seller, or agent can order it, and earlier in escrow beats later every time.
- 2
Inspect the property
A licensed inspector checks the structure for termites, dry rot, and the conditions that invite them.
- 3
Deliver the WDO report
Findings go out in writing, split into Section 1 and Section 2, so every party reads the same facts.
- 4
Treat and repair as negotiated
Whatever the parties agree to fix gets treated or rebuilt, matched to the report's line items.
- 5
Issue the completion certificate
Completed Section 1 work is documented so the lender and escrow have what they need.
- 6
Close
The paperwork trail (report, agreement, certificate) arrives before the deadline does.
If the report finds something
It probably will. Bakersfield is termite country, and a clean WDO report on an older home is the exception, not the rule. A finding is not a failed inspection. It’s a line item with a known fix and a known paper trail, and escrow officers process them every week.
The findings themselves are usually familiar characters. Subterranean tubes on a crawl-space pier. Drywood pellets in a garage. Dry rot in a patio post or an eave that a sprinkler has been hitting for a decade. Each maps to a standard fix: treatment for the live activity, repair or replacement for the spent wood, and both can run while escrow does.
What actually threatens closings is sequence, not substance. A Section 1 item discovered early gets negotiated, treated, and certified with time to spare. The same item surfacing a week before closing forces rushed scheduling and rushed decisions.
There’s also a practical advantage to keeping the findings and the fix under one roof. When the company that wrote the report also performs the treatment and the clearance repairs, the line items match the work, the completion certificate matches the line items, and nobody spends three days reconciling two contractors’ paperwork while escrow waits.
For real-estate agents
Agents don’t need the termite basics explained. What an agent needs from an inspection vendor is boring reliability: scheduling that bends around escrow, reports delivered to every party at once, and findings written in language a first-time buyer can read without calling you in a panic.
That last one matters more than it sounds. A report full of unexplained codes generates three phone calls per deal. A report that says what was found, what it means, and what it costs to think about generates one.
The follow-through matters as much as the first visit. Deals generate supplemental paperwork: reinspections after another contractor’s repairs, updated reports when escrow drags past the customary window, certificates issued the day the work wraps. An inspection vendor who handles those without being chased is the one who ends up on speed dial.
The pitch here is simple and honest. Escrow work is repeat business, and repeat business is earned by being the inspector nobody has to chase for paperwork. Order one report, judge the turnaround and the writing, and decide from that.
Closing date on the calendar? Order the inspection early, not the week of.
Selling? Whether you need a termite clearance at all is its own question.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is an escrow termite inspection free?
No. Escrow and WDO inspections are a paid professional service, because they produce a formal report that becomes part of a real-estate transaction. Free inspections are for homeowners checking their own house, outside of a sale.
How long is a WDO report good for?
Lenders and buyers customarily treat a report as current for a few months, and escrows in California commonly work from reports less than 90 days old. If a deal drags past that, expect a re-inspection before closing.
The report found something. Is the deal in trouble?
Almost never by itself. Findings are routine in termite country, and escrow has a standard path for them: the parties negotiate who handles Section 1 items, the work gets done and documented, and the closing proceeds. Late surprises hurt deals. Findings don't.
Who pays for the inspection and any repairs?
Whatever the purchase contract says. Custom varies, and all of it is negotiable: sellers often take Section 1 items while Section 2 items get waived or shared, but no law fixes it. Your agent will know the local convention for your deal.