Integrity. It does exist in the Home Inspection profession- A positive rant.

[TNinspector]

Wow, so many angry/disgruntled topics and posts present in this group.

Are there people passing themselves off as "qualified home inspectors", when in fact, they have little to no formal/practical training or experience? Sadly, yes.

Are there people just going through the motions with little concern for providing their client with an accurate report as to the condition of what is most likely the largest investment in a lifetime? Pathetically, yes.

There are also thousands of well trained, dedicated and experienced professionals who know that:

a) the client must receive an accurate, complete and unbiased report in a timely manner upon conclusion of the inspection.

b) the client is relying on the information provided by the inspector to make, what is typically, the single largest investment decision of their lives.

c) the client is the boss and the inspector has a moral and legal obligation to serve only their client's interests.

and most importantly,

d) the client (knowingly or unknowingly) may be relying on an inspector's diligence and knowledge to identify and report conditions/issues that may be a potential threat to life or limb.

Now someone out there may be saying, "Awww come on.... that's just playing on people's fears. You should be ashamed of yourself trying to scare people into a home inspection." I speak from first hand experience that conditions and issues like that exist out there in homes that would seem "perfect".

And to those who would tell others that a home inspection isn't needed, you can do it yourself, or its a waste of money? You may be willing to dismiss someone's well-being (family, financial or otherwise) so easily, but rest assured, home inspectors are striving every minute to seek out and identify those issues and exceed the client's expectations.

Do your homework before you make your choice. You should be confident in your home inspector's abilities, knowledge and desire to ensure you receive an accurate and concise report in a timely manner. There are thousands of home inspectors across the nation who know the value of the profession's integrity and honor it everyday. Home inspectors whose clients have entrusted them with the responsibility of providing a vital information tool to aid in one of the largest decisions of their lives.

I, like many, take great pride in being a home inspector. Our integrity is very much alive and well. It may be that some of you have encountered an inspector very much like some the houses we crawl in, under, over and through... even in a great neighborhood, you can run into the occasional "fixer-upper".

[Brian]

Thanks for the sales pitch. This group needed more trash.

Inspector on my old house, came trained and well recomended, yet he sucked. If I had read DYI home inspector book, I would have never bought that house. He did not noticed PB plumbing, etc, etc, etc.

When we sold our house seller hired No 1 company in our area. Guy came with Digital camera and laptop. Made pictures every step of the way and yet did not noticed any issues.

Well he did mentioned possible different age on HeatPump & electric coil.... (Not the fact that HP & A-Coil missmatched + diff age) Buyers had no clue.

Duh!

[roger61611]

I've had good inspections and bad. Even the best inspection isn't good enough to catch everything. Look at what you spend money on when buying ahome The inspection is 300-400 and can be of enormous benefit in negotiating. Title insurance costs hundreds, or in some states, over a thousand. It pays off 8 percent of the time.

Title insurance is a SCAM yet people bitch about paying an inspector ?

[Brian]

I didn't pay title.

And yes title insurance, is the worst scam i have ever seen. If you buy house from the builder, the risk the land it is built on owned by somebodyelse is pretty low. And even then builder will be responsible.

My old house title had line that read: not responsible for unrecorded ..., no coverage for encroachments unless legal survey is attached at the time of closing. When it looked like we had a possible problem, they mentioned fine print.... I asked "Chicago Title" manager when do they pay claims?

She was not aware of any residential claims, ever that they paid....

SCAM

[hallerb]

Home inspectors are a positive for a buyer provided they do a decent job, but a negative for a seller. I sold a home just over a year ago. It was in good shape and was remodeled.

the first buyer backed out after the inspection, reporting your home is in terrible shape.

that inspector had found gas leaks on furnace and brand new hot water tank. I had plumber check, no leaks but had gas valve replaced anyway and furnace serviced, a couple hundred bucks wasted. plumber says this happens all the time, the home inspector has to find stuff wrong so the buyer feels he got his moneys worth

inspector wrote up no GFCI on sump pump, so I had one installed, next inspector wrote up the fact it HAD a GFCI, saying that was bad.

inspector wrote up bees and wasps in yard, I asked any nests? no saw them fly around yard. hey its summer they live outdoors!

wrote up a FADED inspection sticker on the breaker box, you could clearly see it had been signed some 10 years ago, but couldnt read the signature:( new sticker cost 80 bucks wasted

And so it went, inspection killed the first deal, and nearly the second. I still have copies of both inspections, they look like they were done on different homes:(

both inspectors missed a loose crooked garage light fixture, i fixed it anyway before sale.

the first inspector made no mention of the partially cut beam in the basement cieling for the tub drain. the second inspector required jack posts installed on either side, but didnt require a proper footing, so they are useless. I installed the posts to make the buyer feel good, although the local building inspector said every home in the plan was that way, and after 50 years hadnt caused a problem.....

you get the picture the home inspection industry is a joke. no doubt there are dedicated inspectors but the vast majority are a rip off!

If I were buying today I would still use one, they might notice something and finding fake deficencies will certinally help run down my purchase price:)

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Isn't it crime if inspector makes up stories? Like gas leak when there is none? He could be sued. Like in every profession there is wannabe unqualified low life scums. How may inspectors are qualified multi-trades people? Anyhow I never bought old house. Always had one built to my liking. I know all about my place with a set of blue prints.

[hallerb]

How do you PROVE a inspector moved the sensitivty setting on his meter? The plumber demoed it for me. quick easy rip off

Anyhow had TWO INSPECTORS neither of which were honest and qualified. thats just my experience hopefully there are some good ones out there.

[HeatMan]

I will not purchase a new house. They are usually built like crap and will be falling apart within 8-10 years. But that's off topic.

I sold my former house of 16 years last year. The first mortgage loan on the house was at 10% fixed APR. We nearly hurt ourselves since we were in such a hurry to re-finance that loan. Over the 16 year time frame, we refinanced about 4 or 5 times. Each time, the lawyers offices did deed history research to make sure we had a clear title. We did. When we sold the house, we found out at the closing lawyers office that there was a old claim from before the gent we bought it from (He lived there about one and a half years). We no longer had a clear title. Becuase we bought title insurance at teh first closing, we got off clean. If we hadn't, we could have technically been held liable for the about $600.00 PLUS INTEREST from

18 plus years before.

Best money I ever spent.

[Bill Kearney]

Seems that you didn't. Was this the same title company throughout?

Yes, title insurance is a tremendously good idea, most financing won't go through without it.

[louie]

I "recently" purchased a house (last September) that I am unable to live in yet due to all sorts of fun defects that weren't found by the inspector that came highly recommended by our buyer's agent. The defects that WERE found by said inspector were ALSO found by me prior to the inspection.

Included in these previously unnoticed defects:

an addition built entirely on top of a deck instead of a foundation. No break in the deck boards - ie. the same board outside the house on the still-existing outdoor portion also extends under the walls of the addition with no break for flashing.

Partially buried extension cord supplying power to a submersible pump... inside the septic tank... discharging to a nearby stream. Luckily, we also noticed that the septic tank was not draining at all so it got replaced on the seller's dime.

Defective HVAC - cracked heat exchanger, corroded and dripping A/C coil, insufficient return air ducting (one 3x6 return grill remained for the entire 1600 sf house).

No HVAC ducting whatsoever in the addition to the house.

No insulation in the crawl space under the addition/deck

Exposed plumbing under the crawl space

Plumbing leaks in basement (hidden by pipe insulation and an extremely LOW water pressure setting at the regulator)

Asbestos wrapped around heating ducts, which had corrosion damage and holes in the ductwork

electrical connections made entirely of twisted wires and hockey (friction) tape - no wire nuts, terminals, j-box, anything... just stuffed into a hole in the wall behind the stove.

Rotten floor joists under part of the kitchen (crawl space), also found

7 layers of various types of flooring (tile/vinyl/linoleum/wood/engineered wood/3 layers of subfloor...)

Yes, this inspector found some items, like slow plumbing in the upstairs bathroom (supply AND drain), mentioned that the furnace needed cleaning, one or two of the deck boards needed replacement, no handrail on the steps up to the porch (WHY is the "no handrail" comment so popular with inspectors? Is it because it's an easy, nit-picky item that fills up space on the report?). The septic did fail the dye test, but I knew ahead of time that it would so I guess the inspector was an official "rubber stamp" on an item that I already knew about there.

I say, if inspectors are so good, why is there a small print item on the report that says something like "not liable for not finding hidden defects"? If that's the case, what's the point of having an inspector? I'm sure there ARE honest ones out there, and perhaps you are one of them. Next time I buy a house, I don't think I plan on hiring one though because how do I know who's honest and who isn't? I'll share the blame, because I did buy the house knowing that there were some problems with it. However, had I known about the scope of the problems I would have argued a lower sell price or walked away from it. Overall, the house will be a nice place to live when I'm finally done fixing it, but it's been a long, expensive, and tiring five months of evenings and weekends so far and we're only just now contemplating moving in. Argue all you want for the inspectors, but I've purchased two houses in two different states and found the first one to have done a mediocre job at best and the second one to have done a very poor job.

[HeatMan]

You're right, I didn't. I bouught title insurance once. It kept rolling with the re-fi's

There is actually 2 kinds of title insurance, one for the mortgage company and the other for the home owner/buyer. The mortgage title is standard, the buyers title insurance isn't.

[hallerb]

If the seller was aware of the defects and didnt disclose them you can sue them for the repair cost.

I dont generally like involving lawyers, but this is big bucks.

a neighbor sold his home, he had a plumber check the main sewer line, and was told it needed complete replacement.

he didnt disclose this fact. the buyer moved in and realized the sewer was bad, she worked for a plumber, who knew the plumber who originally told the 1st owner sewer line bad.

buyer got new sewer line, plus yard and driveway replacement, all paid for by the original owner.

go get em!

[hallerb]

If the seller was aware of the defects and didnt disclose them you can sue them for the repair cost.

I dont generally like involving lawyers, but this is big bucks.

a neighbor sold his home, he had a plumber check the main sewer line, and was told it needed complete replacement.

he didnt disclose this fact. the buyer moved in and realized the sewer was bad, she worked for a plumber, who knew the plumber who originally told the 1st owner sewer line bad.

buyer got new sewer line, plus yard and driveway replacement, all paid for by the original owner.

go get em!

[TNinspector]

I understand that many of the people who post in this group have had a negative experience with a home inspector in the past. My intent was to provide a point of view from someone that cares about the quality of service they provide, that does appreciate the fact that a client has paid hard earned money for that service and should expect their money's worth, and holds the client's best interests and wellbeing in the highest regards.

Some may read the original post and laugh with disdane because of their own personal experience, but I created the thread to share my genuine point of view as a home inspector. I may have been incorrect to think that it would be received (even partially) in a positive manner. Never the less, there are excellent home inspectors out there that are a credit to the profession and serve their clients well.

All I can do is wish all of you the best in the future. The quality of inspector I decribed in the original post is exactly what potential home buyers should expect and demand. And I can assure you that there are inspectors out there that live up to and exceed those standards. I wish you all the best in the future.

[TNinspector]

I understand that many of the people who post in this group have had a negative experience with a home inspector in the past. My intent was to provide a point of view from someone that cares about the quality of

service they provide, that does appreciate the fact that a client has paid hard earned money for that service and should expect their money's

worth, and holds the client's best interests and wellbeing in the highest regards.

Some may read the original post and laugh with disdane because of their

own personal experience, but I created the thread to share my genuine point of view as a home inspector. I may have been incorrect to think that it would be received (even partially) in a positive manner. Never

the less, there are excellent home inspectors out there that are a credit to the profession and serve their clients well.

All I can do is wish all of you the best in the future. The quality of

inspector I decribed in the original post is exactly what potential home buyers should expect and demand. And I can assure you that there are inspectors out there that live up to and exceed those standards. Take care all.

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

There are good ones, when we bought our first house I had a good inspector. However, I didn't use an inspector recommended by any Realtor or agent or any of that. I used an inspector that I found out of the Yellow Pages and I walked around with him, and I hired him and paid him, he didn't get paid by the bank or realtor or any of that nonsense, and I got a nice folder with a long list in it of things. And he was more expensive than any of the inspectors that had been recommended, but not a lot more.

And, I walked around with him during the inspection, our inspection was more of a running discussion about every point of the house than anything else.

Later on the bank used their own inspector who missed at least two dozen things that I and the inspector had discussed.

Many of the items were trivial things (for me to repair, at least) but having a very long list of nitpicky stuff helped a lot to get the house price down. And a fair amount of stuff on the list I would have missed and some of it I discounted but the inspector pointed out that they were useful items for the negotiation.

My inspector also pointed out a lot of hidden defects, but he explained to me that legally he could not put them in the report since they were covered up. For example he pointed out that the house probably had a lot of tube and porcelain wiring still in it, even though all the visible wire in the basement had been replaced with Romex. And as a matter of fact I did find this to be true once we took possession of the house.

I think this is very foolish. Any home purchase is an emotional time and your judgement is clouded, and your going to miss things. It is extremely foolish not to have multiple pairs of eyes looking at a prospective home. However, it is also true that defects can be found by any handyman with good eyes, as well as an inspector. It would be pretty wise if you have friends who are handy to have them look at your prospective home before you hire the inspector. That way you can give a list of things to the inspector that you are suspicious of so that in addition to things he finds, you can get his opinion on things that he misses.

I would ask how you are selecting these inspectors? I can't say that my selection method for inspectors is particularly the greatest, but I do some things that perhaps a lot of people don't when I am looking for prospective service people. For example I will call and leave a message and if I don't get a phone call back within 48 business day hours I will cross them off the list. After all these are business people and if they are too busy to return sales prospect phone calls then obviously they have enough work to keep themselves busy and don't need my little jobs. I also make a point to visit their office or if they are self employed operating out of their home I will drive by it. This is on the theory that if they are legitimate then they will not be living in the bad part of town, or in a hole in the wall somewhere. I also, perhaps unfairly, will be more interested in a service person who is self employed or in a small business with just a few people in it, than a bigger business where the employees can just kind of hide. And of course I check with the usual BBB and all of that. But overall, I will make a point to talk to the person for

5-10 minutes before hiring them.

People seem to love to pigenhole service people, as if one mechanic is just like another, and can be exchanged like pegs in a board. You yourself are doing it, here. For example you do not say one word that indicates the sex of either of your inspectors. For the language you used, you could substitute "mechanical robot" instead of inspector. Did you even walk around with the inspector? Did you say a single word to him or her regarding any topic other than the home inspection, did you even ask him or her about something completely innocent like the weather? I kind of get the sense here that you made absolutely zero emotional connection whatsoever with the poor guy or gal that came out to do your inspection, it is not surprising that they didn't do a good job. If you were treating them in person how your writing is treating them here, they would have thought you were either a complete arsehole or the worlds' coldest fish.

These days with so much of our economy service driven, it is too bad that so many people don't seem to understand what helps to get better work quality out of service people. And it is pretty common sense. Your going to get better work out of someone who thinks your a likeable person, who makes some kind of emotional connection to you. People after all are trained from birth not to screw over their friends, and service people are no exception to this. Large service organizations like automotive dealerships know this very well that is why they do not like to have the general public come in contact with their mechanics, and will do everything they can to prevent that from happening. A dealership knows that if a mechanic likes the car owner that he is more likely to give that 110% of extra effort, which means the mechanic might possibly do something like just throwing in a quart of oil to top off the crankcase, instead of alerting the service manager the oil is low so the service manager can then go sell the owner a $50 complete oil change.

Ted

[Mark Cato]

When looking at houses, my wife and I went with a good friend that has a pretty varied history in construction. Between us, we were able to spot a lot of issues just during the initial walk-throughs. Even so, when we found a house and made an offer, we still brought in an inspector. It's at least another set of eyes without bias about the property.

Like Ted, I wanted to find a home inspector independent from my agent. I really liked my agent and would work with him again, but I wanted someone that only had to answer to me. Instead of the yellow pages, I turned to friends that had owned their homes for a couple years or more. If there were any issues the inspection missed, this gave a decent window for problems to be revealed.

At least for me, this strategy paid off. My inspector was thorough, happy to answer questions in the moment and listen to my input, and was honest about the problems that were easy fixes and those that were larger. His report was professional, and I think it had an impact on the purchase price. I honestly don't know if a similar list from us would have netted the same result.

Mark _____________________________ Mark Cato [e-mail]

[hallerb]

Oh my experience as a seller sucked, but I would use a inspector as a buyer, hopefully the inspector wouldnt miss anything big, and I have a good bit of experience myself.

the inspector around here have one purpose to run the price down. as a buyer thats grand.

as a seller it sucks.

too bad all inspectors arent honest upstanding people.

I would love 60 minutes to do a investigational report.

have 5 home inspectors inspect the same home, and compare the findings.

do the home inspectors here feel such a report would be a good thing?