What Happens to Fayetteville Termite Coverage in Year Two

Nothing arrives in the mail when the builder's termite coverage on a new house runs out. Nothing stops working, nothing looks different, and the first year is simply over. What you are supposed to do next has a name that appears on no national website and on very few local ones: SWPU, or Soil Warranty Pick-Up.

What Soil Warranty Pick-Up actually is

It is continuing coverage on a newly built home, taken up once the builder's first year runs out. It is picked up with the company that did the original soil treatment, and a four-year contract is what is typically offered. Figures published locally start at about $150, which is a guide rather than a quote, and our ranges sit slightly under the going rate here.

The word pick-up is literal. You are continuing an existing arrangement on an existing treatment, not buying a treatment. That is the whole reason it is inexpensive compared with what the same protection costs on an older house.

Why it goes back to the original treater

The company that treated the soil before the slab was poured or the crawl space was backfilled holds the record of what went down: the product, the rate, which of the four stages it covered, and the dates. It also holds the sketch or graph of the structure that the rate was calculated from. That file is the asset.

Another company has none of it. It cannot warrant work it never did and never saw, so it will generally want to treat the house itself before it will stand behind anything, at full treatment price. That is not a company being awkward. It is the reason a pick-up is worth doing on time rather than eventually.

What happens if nobody picks it up

Nothing happens on the day, which is exactly the problem. The house is not suddenly infested, so there is no signal to react to. What has gone is the arrangement: no re-inspection interval, no stated conditions under which anyone is obliged to re-treat, and nobody holding a file on your address.

Most owners find out years later, at resale. The WDIR-100 goes in, some evidence of wood-destroying insects turns up, and the buyer's agent asks for the treatment history and the current agreement. At that point you are negotiating instead of producing a document.

Read the pick-up as an agreement, because that is what it is

A contract for the control or prevention of wood-destroying organisms has to be in writing in North Carolina, and it has to contain six things at minimum. A pick-up is one of those contracts, so hold it to the same standard even though it feels like an administrative renewal on a house with no problem.

• The license number and phase of the licensee, plus the full company name
• A foundation diagram indicating whether infestation is active or inactive
• The location of any visibly damaged timbers on that diagram
• Whether re-inspections happen, and the approximate interval
• The conditions under which re-treatments will be made
• The total price for the treatment service

The date to pin down before you sign

Ask what the builder's first year ran from. Completion of the treatment and closing on the house are often not the same month, and on a build that sat finished through a slow spring they can be a long way apart. Get the start and end dates in writing, then put the pick-up in the calendar a month early.

Ask two more things while you have someone on the phone: what re-inspection interval the pick-up includes, and whether it is re-treatment only. Re-treatment only is the ordinary shape of these agreements in the trade, and it buys you another treatment rather than a repaired joist.

If the year has already lapsed

Start with an inspection rather than a phone quote, and call the original treating company first even if you expect to be told the window closed. Sometimes the file is still open and the pick-up is still available. If it is not, you are buying a treatment and a fresh agreement, and that is worth comparing across two or three companies properly.

Do not let anybody rush that comparison. The state's own guidance is that termites will not cause significant structural damage in a matter of weeks, and that choosing carefully matters more than moving fast. The licensed local pros we connect you with cover new construction across Cumberland County, from Eastover out through Hope Mills and Spring Lake.