Many a home buyer bought a home without turning on the air conditioning and found out soon after buying the home there were problems with the system. While home inspectors do not perform complex calculations to determine if the size of an air conditioning is adequate you should ask the home inspector anyway. Even if your inspector does not do the math they can give you a rough idea of the size of the system and if it is big enough.
The simple way to test an air conditioning system to determine if it is functional is to wait for a 24 hour period when the exterior temperature is above 65 F degrees. Testing air conditioning units when it is much cooler out can either burn out the compressor as it tries to compress liquid refrigerant or yield a false result. If it cool out you can either require the owner to place money in escrow in case the unit does not work when you try it in the summer or you can hire an air conditioning service company to come out and test the equipment. They can connect pressure gauges to the equipment to determine if it is operational or not.
If the system is not producing a 15 to 20 degree difference between the air coming out the registers and that going back into the return the system is not functioning properly.
Contrary to what you may hear adding refrigerant to a system is not normal, it is a sign of a potentially serious leak that can be very expensive to cure
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