Roughly one house in six that I inspect north of Poughkeepsie has a Federal Pacific Stab-Lok panel in the basement, and roughly one buyer in six has heard of them. They were installed by the million between the 1950s and the early 1980s, and they look entirely unremarkable — grey door, orange handle, nothing about them says forty-year-old safety problem.
The issue is the breakers. Independent testing has repeatedly found Stab-Lok breakers failing to trip under overload at rates far above anything else on the market. A breaker that does not trip is not a nuisance; it is the reason the circuit it protects is allowed to exist.
What I write in the report
I photograph the panel label, note the model, and recommend replacement by a licensed electrician. I do not call it an emergency, because it usually is not — these panels sit for decades without incident. I do call it a known defect, because that is what it is, and because your insurer will almost certainly treat it as one.
What it costs
A full panel replacement in this area runs somewhere between $1,800 and $3,500 depending on service size and how much of the run has to be redone. That is a number worth having before you finalise your offer rather than after.