What fails a 4-point inspection in Florida?

Panels are the finding that ends the most deals. Federal Pacific Stab-Lok and Zinsco panels have documented histories of breakers that fail to trip under overload, and carriers treat them as an outright decline in most cases rather than a repair request. Challenger and Pushmatic panels draw similar scrutiny. There is no partial credit here and no argument to be made about condition. If the panel is one of these brands, the practical answer is replacement by a licensed electrician, and that is a four-figure conversation that belongs inside your inspection period.

Polybutylene supply piping is the plumbing equivalent. It was installed widely from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s, and it is common in Clay County and the older suburban stock across St. Johns and Duval. Its failure mode is what makes carriers refuse it: it degrades at the fittings and joints rather than in the middle of a run, so a system can look completely sound during a visual inspection right up to the moment a fitting lets go inside a wall. Carriers do not distinguish between polybutylene that has leaked and polybutylene that has not.

Wiring problems come in two flavors. Cloth-insulated wiring and any surviving knob-and-tube, which we still find in the historic parts of St. Augustine and in Riverside and Springfield in Jacksonville, is generally uninsurable without a rewire. Aluminum branch circuit wiring from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s is a different case: some carriers decline it outright, others will accept it if the connections have been properly remediated with an approved method by a licensed electrician and that work is documented. Which camp your carrier falls in is worth asking before you order the inspection.

Roof condition drives more declines than anything except panels. Carriers want meaningful remaining service life, commonly at least three years and sometimes five. In Northeast Florida a three-tab shingle roof past roughly twenty years and an architectural shingle roof past twenty-five are both in the zone where remaining life gets questioned, and a roof with widespread granule loss, cupping, lifted tabs, or exposed fasteners will get flagged regardless of installation date. Metal and tile have longer expected lives but are judged on condition, especially at penetrations and valleys.

Active leaks fail immediately and they are the easiest category to fix. A dripping supply connection under a sink, a water heater weeping at the tank, a running toilet flapper, staining at a ceiling from a roof penetration, or condensate backing up out of an HVAC pan. None of these are expensive on their own. All of them will hold up a binder. If you handle them before the inspection, or handle them and get a re-inspection, they stop being an issue quickly. That is why finding them early rather than late is the whole game.