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".

TNinspector wrote:


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!

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 ?

wrote:
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 ?

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

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

wrote:
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

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.

"Brian" wrote in message
ups.com...

wrote:
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 ?

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.


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.




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

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.

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

Best money I ever spent.

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

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.

"Bill Kearney" wrote in message
...
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.

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


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

Best money I ever spent.

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


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.

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!

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!

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.

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 wrote:

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.

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

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?