What a WDI Report Says, and What It Doesn't

A WDI report is a record of what one inspector could see, on one day, in the parts of a house they could physically reach. That is all it is. It is not a structural report, it is not a warranty, and a checked box does not mean live termites.

Most people reading one have it because a lender asked for it, and they are reading it eight days before closing with a number in their head that keeps going up. So here is the short version first.

• Section II is the only part that decides anything. Box A means nothing visible was found. Box B means something was.
• Box B has three separate lines. Live insects is one of them. The other two are old evidence and old damage, and neither is the same thing as an active infestation.
• The form says it is “not a structural damage report” and cannot rule out hidden damage. It says this in bold, on page 1.
• It expires in 90 days. After that it is invalid for a mortgage or a property transfer.

Who this is for

You are a week or two from closing, you have a one-page form in front of you, and something on it is checked that you do not understand. That is who this is written for.

If you have not had the inspection yet and you are working out who pays for it, start here instead. If you found insects in a house you already own and no sale is involved, this is the wrong page — you want the termite types index, which will get you to an identification faster.

What a WDI report is, and who asked for it

WDI stands for wood-destroying insect. In most of the country the report is made on Form NPMA-33, published by the National Pest Management Association, current edition dated 7/01/19. The version hosted by HUD carries the line “This form is approved for FHA and VA loans.”

The buyer almost never orders it. The lender does, through the appraisal. On a VA loan it is a Minimum Property Requirement for properties in areas where the Termite Infestation Probability map rates the risk “very heavy” or “moderate to heavy” (VA Circular 26-22-11).

It covers four insects and nothing else: termites, carpenter ants, carpenter bees, and reinfesting wood-boring beetles. The form states plainly that the inspection “does not include mold, mildew or noninsect wood destroying organisms.” Wood rot is not on this form. If you want rot covered, that is a separate Wood Destroying Organism attachment, and you have to ask for it.

Several states use their own report instead of, or alongside, the NPMA-33. I have not checked that list against each state’s regulator yet, and I am not publishing it until I have.

Section II is the whole report

Everything else on the page is context. Section II is the finding, and it offers exactly two options.

A. “No visible evidence of wood destroying insects was observed.”

B. “Visible evidence of wood destroying insects was observed as follows:” — followed by three numbered lines the inspector fills in separately:

1. Live insects
2. Dead insects, insect parts, frass, shelter tubes, exit holes, or staining
3. Visible damage from wood destroying insects

This is where most of the panic in this category comes from, and it is avoidable. A box filled in on line 2 or line 3, with line 1 blank, means nobody saw a live termite.

Line 2 is traces. Shed wings on a sill, an abandoned mud tube, staining. Line 3 is damage, which is a record of something that happened at some point, not a statement about this year. In a 40-year-old house in Georgia, an entry on line 2 or line 3 is close to ordinary. An entry on line 1 is a different conversation.

What the report explicitly is not

Read the sentence at the top of Section II. It is doing more work than anything else on the page:

This report is indicative of the condition of the above identified structure(s) on the date of inspection and is not to be construed as a guarantee or warranty against latent, concealed, or future infestations or wood destroying insect damage.

Then the note directly under the findings:

NOTE: This is not a structural damage report. If box B above is checked, it should be understood that some degree of damage, including hidden damage, may be present.

The form goes further on page 2 and says the inspector’s “training and experience do not qualify the inspector in damage evaluation.” The person who checked the damage box is not the person qualified to price the repair. Those are two different trades, and the form is honest about it even when the people handing it to you are not.

And it has a shelf life. The report is invalid for securing a mortgage or settling a property transfer if it is not used within 90 days of the inspection date. The same paragraph adds: “This shall not be construed as a 90-day warranty.”

What the inspector couldn’t see

Section IV lists obstructed and inaccessible areas, and it has a 26-item key: fixed ceilings, floor coverings, insulation, stored items, furnishings, appliances, dense vegetation, standing water, and so on. Nobody moved your furniture. Nobody pulled up flooring. The form is explicit that no area was inspected that required “breaking apart or into, dismantling, removal of any object.”

One rule is worth memorising. A crawl space can be marked inaccessible if there is less than 24 inches of clearance from the bottom of the floor joists to the surface below. Attics and crawl spaces also count as inaccessible if the opening is too small for the inspector to fit through. So does anything that needed a ladder.

Read Section IV before you read Section II. A clean box A sitting over a Section IV that lists the crawlspace, the attic, and stored items is a much weaker statement than a clean box A over an empty one. The two look identical at a glance.

What people get wrong

That a checked box means live termites. It usually does not. See Section II above.

That “conducive conditions” on the form is a finding about their house. Page 2 carries a Consumer Maintenance Advisory listing factors that promote infestation: earth-to-wood contact, faulty grade, improper drainage, firewood against the structure, insufficient ventilation, wood mulch in contact with the structure, tree branches touching the building. That list is printed on every copy of the form ever issued. It is general advice, not something an inspector observed at your address. If they did observe it at your address, it belongs in Section V.

That the report covers rot. It does not, and buyers in the Pacific Northwest and the upper Midwest get caught by this regularly, because decay is the more common problem there.

That the inspecting company is neutral about what happens next. Item 5 on page 2 states that neither the company nor the inspector has any interest in the property. That is a statement about the real estate. It says nothing about whether the same company would like to sell the treatment.

What to do next, depending on what’s on your form

The rule the inspector is working from is printed on page 2, and knowing it tells you whether their recommendation was a judgment call or a default:

Treatment or corrective action should be recommended if live termites are found. If no evidence of a previous treatment is documented and evidence of infestation is found, even if no live termites are observed, treatment or corrective action by a licensed pest control company should be recommended.

That second sentence is the one that catches people. Old evidence plus no documentation of a past treatment produces a treatment recommendation, even with nothing alive on the property. The form then says treatment “may be recommended” where evidence exists and a documented treatment did happen previously — unless the structure is already under warranty or a service agreement.

So the fork is really about paperwork:

• Box A, short Section IV. Nothing to do.
• Box A, long Section IV. Ask for the inaccessible areas to be opened up and re-inspected, or accept that you are buying an unknown. Say which one out loud so it is a decision rather than a drift.
• Line 2 or line 3 only, and the seller has treatment records. Often this closes right here. Ask for the records first, before you ask for money.
• Line 2 or line 3 only, and no records exist. You will get a treatment recommendation. That is a negotiation, not a defect.
• Line 1, live insects. Treatment happens before the loan funds on VA and FHA files. The question is who pays, not whether.
• Line 3, visible damage. Get a structural professional in. The form itself recommends exactly this, and the inspector is not qualified to tell you what the repair costs.

Here’s what I’d actually do

Read Section IV first. Then Section II. I would not read them in the printed order, because the second one only means something once you know how much of the house the first one ruled out.

If lines 2 or 3 are filled in and line 1 is blank, I would ask the seller one question before I asked for a dollar: do you have records of a previous treatment? That single question resolves a large share of these, and asking for documents reads very differently across a negotiating table than asking for a credit.

Then I would get a second quote from a company that did not perform the inspection. Not because the first company is dishonest — most are not — but because the company that inspects is very often the company that treats, and a number that has no competition next to it is not information.

Last thing, and this is the one I would hold firm on: the 90-day window is a scheduling constraint, not a reason to hurry. If your closing slips past it you need a new report. That is an inconvenience. It is not a reason to skip the second quote.

Sources

• Termites: How to Identify and Control Them — US Environmental Protection Agency, updated 2025-10-21. Accessed 2026-08-01.
• Form NPMA-33, Wood Destroying Insect Inspection Report (7/01/19) — National Pest Management Association, hosted by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Accessed 2026-08-01. All quoted form language on this page is taken from this document.
• NPMA Forms Information — National Pest Management Association. Accessed 2026-08-01.
• Circular 26-22-11, Pest Inspection Fees and Repair Costs — Veterans Benefits Administration, US Department of Veterans Affairs, 2022-06-15. Accessed 2026-08-01.