What the NPMA-33 Termite Report Actually Says

The NPMA-33 is the standard Wood Destroying Insect Inspection Report. It is the form a licensed inspector fills out for a real estate transaction, and it is what a lender means when they ask for a termite letter or a WDI report.

Here is the part that matters: it reports visible evidence of wood destroying insects, in readily accessible areas, on the day of the inspection. That is the whole scope. Three limits, all of them load-bearing.

It is not a warranty. It is not a guarantee that the structure has no termites. It is not a structural damage assessment — if damage is found, evaluating what it means for the building is an engineer's or contractor's job, not the inspector's. Reading the form as any of those three is how people end up surprised later.

The form covers a category, not one pest. Subterranean termites are the headline around here, and they should be — they are the most common finding and the most consequential.

But carpenter ants, carpenter bees, and wood-boring beetles including powderpost beetles and old house borers are all wood destroying insects, and all of them belong on the report when there is evidence of them.

This matters in practice because the three get confused constantly. Carpenter ant galleries look clean and sanded; termite galleries are packed with soil and frass. Round exit holes in a beam are beetles, not termites. Getting the identification right changes the recommendation and the cost of fixing it.

Section IV lists obstructions and inaccessible areas — everywhere the inspector could not see. It is routinely ignored, and it is the single most informative part of the report.

A crawl space full of stored boxes, a basement with finished walls, insulation covering a sill plate, heavy furniture against a wall, wall-to-wall carpet, a garage stacked to the ceiling: every one of those goes in Section IV, and every one of them shrinks what the report actually covered.

Two houses can both come back with no visible evidence found. One had an open crawl space, exposed sill plates and a clear perimeter. The other had four obstructions listed. Those are not the same report, and anyone relying on them should not treat them the same way.

Subterranean termites work from the soil up, inside wood, behind finishes. A colony can be active in a wall with nothing visible from either side of it. That is not an inspector cutting corners — it is the nature of the insect and the reason the form says visible evidence rather than absence of termites.

So the honest way to read a clean NPMA-33 is: a licensed inspector looked at everything they could see and found no evidence that day, and here is the list of what they could not see.

That is genuinely useful. It is just not the same thing as a promise, and a buyer who thinks they bought a promise is a buyer who feels lied to in three years.

A report can find no insects and still create work, because the form also captures conditions that invite them.

The usual list: wood-to-soil contact, excessive moisture or standing water under the structure, insufficient crawl space clearance, wood debris or leftover form boards left under the house, mulch or soil piled against siding above the slab line, faulty grade sending water toward the foundation, and downspouts discharging at the wall.

None of those are termites. All of them are reasons termites show up later, and all of them are cheaper to fix while somebody is already under the house than after closing. Sellers who handle the obvious ones before the inspection tend to get shorter reports.

Almost every delay we see traces back to one of two things: the inspection was scheduled too late in the contract period, or the inspector could not get access.

On timing — schedule it early enough that if evidence turns up, there is room to treat and re-inspect without renegotiating the closing date. A finding is not a deal-killer. A finding discovered with four days left often is.

On access — the crawl space hatch needs to be unlocked and reachable, the attic needs a way in, and stored items need to be pulled a couple of feet off the walls in the garage and basement. Every box that stays put becomes a Section IV entry, which means less coverage on the report and more questions from the lender.

Pets secured, utilities on, and somebody who can actually let us in. Unglamorous, and it is most of the difference between a same-week turnaround and a scramble.

This part varies, and anyone telling you there is one universal rule is guessing. Whether a WDI report is required, who orders it, and who pays are set by the loan program and the purchase contract, not by us.

What we can tell you: VA loans commonly require one, FHA and conventional lenders frequently ask for one, and most lenders want the report to be recent relative to closing. Confirm the specific requirement with the lender on that file rather than assuming it matches the last one.

The metro adds one wrinkle worth knowing. A deal on the Kansas side and a deal on the Missouri side need an inspector licensed in that state. We hold both — Missouri applicator license C29778 and Kansas certified applicator license 309053 — which is why agents working both sides of the line tend to keep one number rather than two.

A completed NPMA-33 with the inspector's license number on it, filled out properly — including Section IV, honestly, even when an honest Section IV is longer than anybody wanted.

A straight conversation about what was found. If there is evidence, we will tell you what it is, whether it looks active, what treatment involves, and what is outside our scope and belongs to an engineer or a contractor. If there is nothing, we will say that too, without upselling a treatment nobody needs.

Same-day and next-day availability in most of the metro, the same experienced technician on every job, and over thirty years of looking at this. Call or text us and we will get it scheduled.