Buying a house with knob and tube does not have to stop a purchase. Before your contingencies end, you need two answers: how much of the wiring is still live, which drives cost, and whether your insurer will write a policy, which decides whether you can close on time. A general home inspection rarely settles either one.
LA Knob and Tube replaces knob and tube wiring across Los Angeles, Pasadena, Glendale and South Pasadena, and a knob and tube inspection during escrow is the usual way to get the first answer. This guide walks through the order to do things in, what each step can and cannot tell you, and how the findings turn into a request to the seller.
What the general inspection can and cannot tell you
A general home inspector looks at the visible parts of the house in a few hours. In an attic or crawlspace with open joists, porcelain knobs and separated cloth-covered conductors are easy to spot, and the report will usually say knob and tube was observed and recommend evaluation by an electrician. That recommendation is the inspector’s way of saying the question is outside the scope of the inspection.
What the inspection usually cannot do is tell active wiring from abandoned wiring, find splices inside walls, or say which rooms still depend on the old circuits. A house that has been partly rewired can show modern cable at the panel and new outlets in the kitchen and still have knob and tube feeding bedrooms. The opposite also happens: old runs left in the attic that were disconnected years ago. The guide to active and abandoned knob and tube explains why that distinction drives everything that follows, and how to identify knob and tube shows what the inspector was looking at.
Fitting an electrician into escrow
The contingency period in your purchase contract is the window to learn about the house and to cancel or renegotiate without losing your deposit. Knob and tube questions take longer than most inspection findings, because they need a second visit and then an insurance answer, so the order matters.
- Book the electrical evaluation right after the general inspection. The visit maps which circuits are knob and tube, whether they are live, how the panel protects them and how open the attic and crawlspace are for new cable. Access is needed through the seller’s agent.
- Send the findings to your insurer or broker. Ask in writing whether the house can be written as is, after partial replacement, or only after full replacement, and whether a deadline after closing is acceptable.
- Get a scope and price for the path the insurer requires. A quote that lists each circuit, each planned opening and who patches it is something you can negotiate with.
- Make your request to the seller before you remove contingencies.
If any step runs late, talk to your agent about extending the contingency rather than removing it on a guess.
Insurance before close
Lenders require homeowners insurance before they fund a loan, so a house your carrier will not write is a house you may not be able to close on with that lender. Bay Area news reporting in 2025 described lenders declining to approve mortgages without insurance, leaving buyers who could not find a standard policy with the more expensive California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort. The FAIR Plan’s growth across California, from 236,515 residential policies in September 2021 to 621,234 in September 2025, reflects the wider market rather than knob and tube, but it is the market you are shopping in.
Carriers differ, and their rules change, so ask yours directly. The California insurance guide lists the questions to put in writing and explains what an electrician’s letter can say. Do not leave the insurance question until the week before closing.
The seller’s electrical disclosure
Since January 1, 2026, California sellers or their agents must give buyers a prescribed electrical statement under Civil Code section 1102.6i. It advises that a buyer may want a qualified professional to inspect the main service panel, subpanels and wiring, and warns that substandard, recalled or faulty wiring may be a fire risk and may make property insurance difficult to obtain. It also notes that limited electrical capacity may hinder solar, electric heating or water heating and EV charging. Sales within three years of a certificate of occupancy are exempt.
The statement is the same for almost every resale, so it is not a finding about the house you are buying. The Transfer Disclosure Statement separately asks sellers about known defects or malfunctions in the electrical system. Neither form names knob and tube. If the seller knows about it, the disclosures may mention it; if they do not, your own evaluation is what tells you.
Negotiating with the seller
Once you know the scope, the usual options are a repair before closing, a credit at closing, a price reduction, or a mix. Each has a tradeoff.
A repair before closing puts the work on the seller’s schedule and contractor. If you go that way, ask for the permit to be finaled by the building department before close, for the panel to be labeled, and for a written list of any circuits that remain if the job is a partial replacement. Without those, you are relying on a description.
A credit or price reduction lets you choose the scope, the contractor and the timing, and it avoids rushed work on a house you do not own yet. It only works if your insurer will write the policy with the knob and tube still in place, perhaps with a replacement deadline. Your agent will know how sellers in your market tend to respond; the evaluation and quote give that conversation numbers to work from.
For budgeting, whole-house knob and tube replacement typically costs $10 to $20 per square foot of living area in the LA area before panel work and patching, and a national budgeting range for a typical house is $12,000 to $35,000. Partial jobs vary too much for one figure. The LA cost guide explains what moves a house within those ranges, and the quote checklist helps you compare bids.
After you close
If the work waits until after closing, plan it before move-in if you can; the guide to living at home during rewiring explains why. Empty rooms make it easier to reach outlets and lights, protect floors and patch openings, and an empty house makes a circuit-by-circuit sequence simpler. Routes usually run through the attic and crawlspace first, with openings at boxes and where framing has to be crossed. If the insurer set a deadline, put the permit application on the calendar the week you get the keys.
If you are in escrow now, call with the inspection report and your contingency date, and we can tell you what the evaluation will need to cover.
