Get a separate pool inspection from someone who does pools for a living. A standard home inspection in Nevada covers the pool lightly or not at all, and the pool is one of the more expensive things on the property. I am not a pool inspector. But I have been through enough of these with buyers to know what the inspectors tend to look at and what tends to turn into a negotiation afterward.
Why the pool gets its own inspection
Home inspectors in Nevada are generally not pool specialists, and most home inspection reports say so somewhere in the fine print. A pool has its own equipment, its own plumbing, and its own failure points, and none of it is cheap to fix.
A dedicated pool inspection is a small line item in your due diligence. It is usually the cheapest part of the day and the one most likely to change what you do next.
What inspectors tend to look at
- The equipment. Pump, filter, and the heater if there is one. Age matters more than almost anything else, and most of it has a manufacture date printed on the label
- The surface of the pool, and roughly where it is in its life
- Cracks, and whether they look cosmetic or like something more
- Tile, coping, and the condition of the deck around the pool
- Whether the pool is holding water, and how the visible plumbing looks
- Safety items, including the barrier and the electrical
On the barrier, Clark County has requirements covering things like height, gaps underneath, and gates that close and latch on their own. Whether a specific pool meets current requirements depends on when it was built and permitted, so let the inspector flag it and confirm anything specific with the county rather than eyeballing it.
What tends to turn into a negotiation
- A surface that is near the end of its life, since resurfacing is the expensive one
- A heater that has not worked in a while
- A pump on its way out
- Cracks the inspector wants a specialist to look at
- A pool that has been sitting green, or one that has been drained and left empty
None of those are automatic dealbreakers. They are just things you want priced before you are past your due diligence period, not after.
What to ask the seller for
- When the pool was last resurfaced
- Service records and the name of the service company, if there is one
- Dates or receipts for any equipment that has been replaced
- Permits for the pool and for anything added to it later
- Whether the pool has ever been shut down or left unattended
Some sellers have all of this in a folder. Some have none of it. Either answer tells you something.
Simple summary
Hire a pool inspector in addition to your home inspector. Get the age of the equipment and an opinion on the surface in writing, let the inspector handle anything involving cracks, safety, or electrical, and ask the seller for whatever records exist. A pool in good shape is a great thing to buy. A pool nobody has touched in a few years is a repair bill with water in it.
If you want to see what pool homes are actually on the market in Las Vegas right now, you can browse the current list here: See Las Vegas Pool Homes