How long is the inspection period when you buy a home in Scottsdale, Arizona?

The inspection period when you buy a home in Arizona is the time after your offer is accepted when you inspect the property and decide whether to move forward, and the Arizona REALTORS® contract (February 2026 edition) sets it at ten days, counted from contract acceptance, unless you and the seller write in a different number. When I write an offer with a buyer, I'll show you the exact date the period ends before you sign.

I'm Jen Keene, a REALTOR® with eXp Luxury in Scottsdale, AZ, helping people buy and sell homes. I walk every buyer through pre-approval and the buyer broker agreement before they see a single house, and the inspection period is the next deadline that matters once an offer is accepted.

The contract wording in this post comes from the February 2026 edition of the Arizona REALTORS® Residential Resale Real Estate Purchase Contract and the October 2022 edition of the Residential Buyer's Inspection Notice and Seller's Response. Those were the current editions on the association's forms page when I checked on October 29, 2026. The association revises its forms, so the contract your agent uses is the one that controls, and the date printed on it tells you which edition you have.

According to the Arizona REALTORS® contract, the buyer uses the inspection period, at the buyer's expense, to do the inspections and investigations they want, to ask questions of government agencies, lenders and insurance agents, and to verify the information in the MLS listing. The contract also names items that have to be looked at inside this window if they matter to you: square footage, termites and other wood-destroying insects, flood hazard, homeowner's insurance, sewer or septic, and swimming pool barrier rules. It says the buyer gives the seller and the brokers a copy of each inspection report, at no cost, when the buyer gets it.

The Arizona Department of Real Estate's Buyer Advisory adds a few specifics. It says a roof inspection by a licensed roofing contractor is highly recommended if the roof is ten years old or older, and that a home inspector may leave the pool or spa out of the general inspection, so a pool company may need to look at it separately. The same advisory says there is no practical substitute for a professional inspection.

The BINSR is the Buyer's Inspection Notice and Seller's Response, the Arizona REALTORS® form the contract points buyers to for giving their notice. The contract says that before the inspection period ends, the buyer delivers a signed notice of any items disapproved, that all the inspections you want have to be finished before the notice goes out, and that every item has to be in one notice.

On the BINSR, the buyer checks one of three choices. The first accepts the home with no corrections requested. The second rejects the home and cancels the contract, and the third lists the items the buyer disapproves of and gives the seller a chance to correct or address them. The form tells the buyer that the choice cannot be changed after the notice is delivered to the seller, so the list needs to be complete and the choice settled before you sign it.

If you cancel and your notice lists the items you disapprove of, the contract says your earnest money is released to you. If you cancel and your notice leaves the items out, the cancellation stands, but the seller can send a cure notice, and a buyer who does not fix that within three days is in breach and the seller is entitled to the earnest money.

When you give the seller a chance to correct items, the contract says the seller responds in writing within five days after delivery of your notice, or within a different number of days if one was written into the contract. If the seller does not respond in writing in that time, the contract treats it as a refusal to correct or address any of the items.

A seller who agrees in writing to correct items has to complete the repairs in a workmanlike manner and deliver paid receipts to you three days before the close of escrow date, or a different number of days if one was written in. If the seller is unwilling or unable to correct items, or doesn't answer, you have a decision on a short clock. You can cancel within five days after the seller's response is delivered or after the seller's response time ends, whichever happens first, and your earnest money is released to you. If you don't cancel in that time, the contract says you close escrow without the items the seller did not agree in writing to correct or address.

The Arizona REALTORS® contract says that if a buyer doesn't give notice of disapproved items or cancel within the specified time, the buyer is conclusively deemed to have chosen to go ahead without correction of any disapproved items. So when the last day passes without a delivered notice, the buyer has accepted the home as it stands.

The Arizona Department of Real Estate's Buyer Advisory lists the loan and appraisal contingencies as separate contingencies in the contract, so those are separate from this one. The same advisory warns that a buyer who waives a contingency such as the inspection contingency may lose earnest money or owe damages after backing out, and it tells buyers to weigh the risks and consult their own attorney first. If you are thinking about waiving or shortening the inspection period to make an offer stronger, a licensed Arizona attorney is the person to ask.

Yes, if the seller agrees and it is put in writing. The contract says only a written agreement signed by both parties will extend response times or cancellation rights, and that verbal discussions will not extend them, so a verbal okay from the seller's agent is not enough.

If you think you need more time, maybe because a specialist can't get to the home until after day ten, ask the day you find out, since the signed agreement has to be in place before the old deadline passes. I'll write the request up and get it to the seller's agent, and the seller can say yes or no.

The contract says all references to days are calendar days, and that a day begins at 12:00 a.m. and ends at 11:59 p.m. When it counts a time period, it leaves out the day the period starts and includes the last day. Contract acceptance happens on the date the signed contract is delivered to and received by the appropriate broker, so the clock doesn't start on the day you made the offer or the day you first heard a yes.

Weekends count, since they are calendar days, so ten days is not two work weeks.

These are made-up dates to show the counting, and your own contract's numbers are the ones that apply. If the signed contract is delivered to and received by the broker on Monday, November 2, that day is left out, so day one is Tuesday, November 3 and day ten is Thursday, November 12, which ends at 11:59 p.m.

Say the buyer delivers the BINSR on Tuesday, November 10, asking the seller to correct items. With a five-day response time, the seller's deadline is Sunday, November 15, because Sunday counts. If the seller delivers a written response on Friday, November 13, that is earlier than the deadline, so the buyer's five days to cancel start from November 13 and end Wednesday, November 18. If the seller says nothing, the five days start when the seller's response time ends on November 15 and end Friday, November 20.

According to the contract, the buyer's inspections and investigations are at the buyer's expense, and the buyer orders and pays for any wood-destroying insect inspection done in the inspection period.

The seller's disclosure is a separate document. The contract says the seller delivers a completed Seller's Property Disclosure Statement, known as the SPDS, within three days after contract acceptance, and a five-year insurance claims history within five days. The buyer's deadline to disapprove items from the SPDS or the claims history is the end of the inspection period or five days after receiving the document, whichever is later. So a disclosure that arrives on day eight gives you until day thirteen to respond to what it says, which is a separate clock from the one for the BINSR.

The Buyer Advisory says the broker is not responsible for verifying what is on the SPDS and tells buyers to check any statement that concerns them. It also says the seller's disclosure obligation remains even if the buyer and seller agree that no SPDS will be provided. The disclosure tells you what the seller wrote down, an inspector tells you what shows up on the day of the inspection, and you want both in front of you before the inspection period ends.

On who does the inspecting, the Arizona Department of Real Estate's Property Buyer's Checklist suggests having a previously owned home inspected by a professional home inspector and points buyers to the Arizona State Board of Technical Registration for inspection standards. Arizona law, A.R.S. 32-122.02, is titled “Certification of home inspectors,” and the Board's website lists home inspector certification, so it's reasonable to ask any inspector you're considering for their Board certification before you book.

The first is waiting to schedule. The deadline doesn't move because an inspector's calendar is full, and if the general inspector finds something that needs a roofer or a pool company, that specialist has to be scheduled inside the same window. Book the general inspection the day the offer is accepted, and ask the inspector how soon the report will arrive.

The second is treating the BINSR like a punch list. The notice is for items you disapprove of, and the seller answers in writing, so a clear list built from what the inspection reports found is easier to respond to than a long one that mixes a failed water heater with scuffed paint. If something cosmetic was already there when you made the offer, talk it over with your agent before it goes on the notice.

The third is missing the written notice. A phone call to the seller's agent is not a signed notice, and the contract treats silence by the deadline as a decision to go ahead. Aim to deliver the signed BINSR a day or two before the last day, so a problem with a signature doesn't cost you the deadline.

The fourth is sending the notice before everything is finished. The form says every inspection you want has to be completed before the notice goes out, and the choice can't be changed after delivery, so a specialist's report that comes back afterward has nowhere to go.

Before you make an offer, decide how many days you want for the inspection period, since ten is the form's starting number and it can be changed. Once your offer is accepted, put the inspection deadline, the SPDS date and the seller response date on a calendar, book your inspections that day, and send the signed BINSR with time to spare.

Here's how buying a home works in Arizona, step by step. Here's what escrow is and what happens during it, and here's who pays what at closing in Arizona. If you're still working out your loan, here's how financing works when buying a home, and here's my guide to buying a home in Scottsdale.

If you have a contract in front of you and want the dates checked, get in touch or call me at (480) 203-6605, and I'll go through each deadline with you. For anything that turns on what the contract legally requires, a licensed Arizona attorney is the person to ask.