A general home inspection stops at the shoreline. The dock is frequently the most expensive thing nobody looked at.
Most home inspections do not meaningfully assess a dock, a lift, or a seawall. On a waterfront purchase that leaves the single most weather-exposed structure on the property unexamined, and it is routinely a five-figure structure.
Piling condition at the waterline, framing and fastener state, float condition and freeboard, lift cable age and cradle alignment, and whether the existing structure matches what is permitted. Any one of those can carry real cost.
Waterfront transactions frequently close in the warm months, when the lake is high and the parts that fail first are underwater. That is precisely the period when a dock is hardest to assess honestly, which is worth knowing before relying on a summer look.
Against the replacement cost of a covered dock and lift, it is a very small percentage. It is most valuable when the lake is high, because that is when the least is visible and the most is assumed.
Whether a structure matches what is on record is a reasonable thing to establish before closing, and it is a question better asked during diligence than after.