Disclosure for an "As Is" Home? Need Help

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by Barking Spider

Boomerang - I apologize if I offended you. I guess I took your rant against home inspectors to heart. When I first read your post, it sounded like you were casting stones at the profession because you had a bad experience with one guy. I guess your line about how you would do it if you decided to become an inspector, sounded to me like you thought that we didn't take it seriously.

Yes, you did say "some" and not all.

I have to wonder...did you interview your potential inspector and question him on his experience, certifications, years in business, etc? For him to be so incompetent he most likely was a new guy, or someone that hasn't been in business very long.

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, but you really shouldn't paint us all with the same brush.

Again, I apologize if I offended you. I didn't mean it to be personal.

Thanks for your kind reply. Very nice of you!

This one particular inspector was an employee of an inspection company highly recommended to me by my real estate agent. My agent had considerable experience both in real estate and in using this particular company. I checked their state and BBB credentials and so forth online and no red flags. As it turned out (as I DM'd you) he was a relatively new guy and not terribly dedicated to the profession. But at the time, there was no publicly available information about this individual or his company which raised a red flag compared to every other available company or individual.

So the short of it is, I performed due diligence but got burned, as did other people I know who bought around the same time. Bad combination of a busy market and insufficient regulation.

My quibble is with insufficient regulation. I don't believe anyone who is not actually quallified to perform a job should be allowed to hang up a shingle or be sent out by a company under false advertising of quality work. Anyone can make a mistake. That's understandable. Gross negligence is a wholel 'nother ball of wax! Regulations need to be in place to protect consumers against this type of professional, no matter what their field of work....

I'm definitely not painting everyone as a bad guy, sorry if that's how it made you feel.
A lot of professional people have come through for me at different stages, I love 'em all!

[maf763]

I'd feel more comfortable hiring an inspector other than the one the realtor recommended. This way if an inspection is poorly done as happened in this case, it doesn't reflect badly on the realtor.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by maf763

I'd feel more comfortable hiring an inspector other than the one the realtor recommended. This way if an inspection is poorly done as happened in this case, it doesn't reflect badly on the realtor.

The rub is that the inspector ranks are full of semi- or in- competents. Every unsuccessful contractor in each city goes for it. It is however harder than that.

I reject about 90% of the ones I come across. I have two I used regularly and a consulting engineer who is very good but doubles your cost.

[bentlebee]

Originally Posted by Boomerang

Thanks for your kind reply. Very nice of you!

This one particular inspector was an employee of an inspection company highly recommended to me by my real estate agent. My agent had considerable experience both in real estate and in using this particular company. I checked their state and BBB credentials and so forth online and no red flags. As it turned out (as I DM'd you) he was a relatively new guy and not terribly dedicated to the profession. But at the time, there was no publicly available information about this individual or his company which raised a red flag compared to every other available company or individual.

So the short of it is, I performed due diligence but got burned, as did other people I know who bought around the same time. Bad combination of a busy market and insufficient regulation.

My quibble is with insufficient regulation. I don't believe anyone who is not actually quallified to perform a job should be allowed to hang up a shingle or be sent out by a company under false advertising of quality work. Anyone can make a mistake. That's understandable. Gross negligence is a wholel 'nother ball of wax! Regulations need to be in place to protect consumers against this type of professional, no matter what their field of work....

I'm definitely not painting everyone as a bad guy, sorry if that's how it made you feel.
A lot of professional people have come through for me at different stages, I love 'em all!

Your story reminds of a Dateline investigate program I saw a couple of months ago about a home inspector and a realtor. The showed many home owners who were now left with thousands of dollars of repairs because the realtor would send all the buyers to houses either owned by someone if his close circle, than recommend the same home inspector who was also part of this all and than the company would do the repairs after closing for not so much money which ended for one couple of $ 90,000.-, but the estimate was lower than 1/2 of it, in all the people on this program it started the same. Realtor took buyers to houses that needed a little cosmetic repairs and ended after closing in a nightmare. The program also showed that the realtor was a co-owner in the repair company but "forgot" to mention that and even when inteview by Dateline, said "oh that happen so long ago, and it was only in name"....forgot that he earned money aswell.
Very good that Dateline sometimes shows these things, just like the program about home inspectors who they timed. In new construction the went in and came out and signed off, taken less than 30 sec., how great is your home inspected before closing., of course this was only in this program, no where else will this happen.

[Driller1]

Originally Posted by Barking Spider

This is very odd. As a home inspector, we are required (by Standards of Practice either by State law, or associations we belong to) to test all the fixtures we reasonably can.

I can't imagine why an inspector would test one shower faucet, and not the other. IF it is like you say, then water obviously would have run down into the ceiling when the shower was tested.

I think the sellers are partly responsible since they knew the shower didn't work, but didn't disclose it. In their defense, they probably didn't have any idea it would leak, and paid someone to fix it. I just have to wonder why they left the faucet handle and shower head in place. At least put a cap over the shower head, or remove the handle.

The repair person is also to blame for leaving the pipes in a position where it would leak if used. Good luck getting them to fix something after 10 years.

Seems very odd that the plumbing company would leave a water pipe "fully loaded" in a place where they had decided it wasn't a good idea to have plumbing.

I would give the home inspector a call and discuss this with them. While it's true that most home inspection contracts have limits to liability (pretty much every contract does, not sure why everyone is so shocked because home inspectors do too), we are also business people and if we messed up, we messed up. I would rather have a satisfied client singing my praise, than have a pissed off one telling EVERYONE they know about how I didn't take care of a problem.

I would also discuss this with the sellers, since they share a large part of the responsibility because they didn't disclose the shower head did not work.

I may post another thread about Home Warranties and how they are not really out there for the people that have bought their products.

I have calls each year with nightmare stories where the home inspector had no idea how to check the well. One thought it was a well, it was the septic tank. They had no well. Just an illegal sand point. $10,000 later, they had a well.

[Silverfall]

Out here our home inspectors don't inspect the well or septic. We call the well guys and the septic folks for that.