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While I have done many inspections before someone made an offer, they are not a large part of my business. Mostly they are for houses up for auction, or foreclosures.
I have done lots of pre-listing inspections so the seller knows up front what is going on with their home, and what they may want to fix before putting it on the market.
On buying someone else's report......I have covered this on another thread, but I will go again here.
Generally, a home inspection report is done for a person buying a home. It's in their name, and most likely has writing all over it saying it is ONLY for their use and third parties have no rights to use it.
My wording goes like this, "This report is the exclusive property of the Inspection Company and the client whose name appears herein. Use or reliance on the findings of this report by any unauthorized persons is strictly prohibited."
Most home inspectors have a similar clause in their reports, this is an industry wide policy. We like to protect our work, and liability from unauthorized use.
Case in point...I did an inspection, found lots of stuff wrong, buyers backed out. About 18 months after my inspection, someone bought the house, and was given a copy of my report. Well, she had some major problems in the house, and called me and asked what I was going to do about it.
The answer was NOTHING. I didn't work for her. I did the inspection a year and a half before she bought it, and what she was describing was the result of the problems I noted then. She said,"You didn't mention anything about the floor system rotting in your report".
I told her that the floor system was probably the biggest thing wrong in that house, and it was on the report, which she has no rights to by the way.
Turns out that the report given to her was missing a few pages. Cost me over a thousand dollars for my atty. to get it thrown out of court. It's funny, it only took the judge about a minute and a half to render his decision. I guess the atty....well, that's another thread.
That's a prime example of why home inspectors are touchy about their reports floating around out there.
Recently a friend of mine from the UK was telling me that they were considering legislation that would require that prior to placing a property up for sale the property owner would have the property inspected, title search complete, and property appraised!
Bonnie good luck with the sale, an interested buyer is a good thing...
WhoFanMe, any benefit to purchasing the inspection report over just asking the buyer for a copy? As a potential buyer I would be more impressed with another buyers report than I would with an upfront seller purchased report. I would automatically start thinking why did they go to the expense of getting an inspection if they aren't trying to slip something by? I can more easily see an honest motivation from a buyer getting the report in advance.
If the buyer wont share the report, then perhaps buying is not a bad idea to know what they found and fix it......buy why not just ask first?
Okay, this puzzles me. The seller has a pre-inspection done in order to find out anything wrong with the house that they don't already know about because it's a hidden problem that they wouldn't ordinarily notice, and they have to disclose this (at least in Texas) to potential buyers, and you think that they're trying to slip something by, when they could easily NOT have an inspection done and if something not obvious shows up that they didn't disclose, just say they didn't know about it.
Run by me again how they're trying to slip something by by getting a pre-inspection? It doesn't compute.
A lot of times the problems I find are right there in front of God and everyone, but unless you are looking for them, people just don't notice. For example, wood rot around doors and windows. Many times it doesn't look like much of anything, then I poke it with my finger, and it's like mush.
I have included a few photos of typical stuff on homes less than 20 years old. The first one shows some wood rot, probably no one that is not really looking for is going to notice. The 2nd is a flashing boot on a plumbing vent that splits when it gets worn. It just happens with time, but can cause some serious leaking issues if not taken care of. The last one is from a crawlspace under a front door. The wood trim around the door, as well as the jamb and threshold are moisture damaged and allowing water to seep into the floor system. If not found, there could be serious SSS in repair bills.
I'm not sure what would motivate a person to just hand over a document that they paid several hundred dollars for when it is clear that it is not intended to be used by anyone else.
I think you did a great thing by having an inspection upfront and perhaps a buyer will still have another inspection done just to see if the home inspection was done well but than both sides are save and to me it shows honesty.
I can also understand why a buyer would order a home inspection upfront. You don't want to have your deposit out there for a while if it isn't worth it, but still you have to negotiate the price or it can be taken into the negotiation. All different views and all different opinions are possible on this issue, I guess.
Good stuff, Bentlebee.
I am seeing more pre sale home inspections in my area, too. What I like is that the house does not have to come off the market for X days during the inspection/option period. I think it a win-win for everyone.
Barking Spider, my inspector made me sign an acknowledgment/agreement that any subsequent new inspection of my property by a potential buyer could conceivably disclose previously unknown or undiscovered conditions, and that said discovery of those conditions could not and would not be used by me in and of themselves as a claim against him for malpractice. Thought that would interest you.
Okay, how about this dilemma? The buyer gets an inspection and, as part of negotiations (the reason it was obtained in the first place), gives a copy of it to the seller. The Seller's Disclosure that's required by law to be provided to any potential buyer has a paragraph that asks if the Seller is aware of any inspections done with X period of time (a few years), and if so, do they have a copy of it, and, if so, requires that they attach a copy of the inspection. But the inspector is saying that only the buyer can have a copy (which defeats the purpose of sharing it with the seller for negotiation purposes.) So, the Seller is in a position of breaking the law if they DON'T share the copy that they have with a potential buyer, or angering the inspector. What do you, as an inspector who doesn't want anyone else to have a copy of the inspection, propose be done in that situation? And are you willing to take it up with the state real estate commission and legislature in order to get that requirement removed so that there's NOT full disclosure?
The sentence that I've seen on inspections has clearly been a CYA sentence that states that the inspection is the property of the inspector AND THE BUYER and that anyone other than the person who paid for the inspection should not rely on it.
Thanks to everybody for their input! In this market, anything out of the ordinary is possible I suppose.
We have since found out from the potential buyer that he will be present for this inspection and that the inspector is coming in from out of town - again, odd.
I think if anything it is a win-win and if he was going to walk from this it's better sooner than later. We're showing the house tonight to second lookers and again on Monday to second lookers, so I am really glad we haven't contracted with anyone.
~Bonnie
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