Home inspector recommendation for Standard Pacific (new home, pool, building)

[atxb]

@gegtx
Sorry to bump the old thread, did you hire Glen Davis or some one else?

[BentBow]

Originally Posted by gegtx

Our first choice for an inspector let us know that Standard Pacific was asking for him to have what he thought were ridiculous limits on insurance and signing forms that he didn't want to sign. He does not want to work with Standard Pacific.

A quick google search indicated that he's not the only inspector that has run into this problem in the past. We really like the home and are on an accelerated schedule for closing so if anyone has a recommendation of someone who has worked with this builder in the past, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

P.S. I did search this forum and found some recs for inspectors, but not sure if they will work with Standard Pacific.

Good for him!!!
I applaud him for his ethics and integrity.

Standard Pacific is only willing to work with a "hired gun"

That is the exact reason you don't want anyone inspector under Standard & Pacific's thumb. There is no need to sign anything from Standard & Pacific.... Period!

You tell Standard Pacific when the inspector will be there, if they don't want to let them perform the inspection, then they have something to hide and are being shady.

[HD34]

we just used glen last summer. He was worth every penny.

[BriansZ]

I realize that this is a dead thread, but this must be something that is becoming common with builders. We're building a Taylor Morrison home and I emailed Glen based on his positive reviews on here. He told me that due to their insurance requirements which are five times what the state requires, only a few inspectors are able to inspect their homes. He also stated that none of those inspectors are qualified for phase inspections, so it wouldn't be worth the money.

[atxb]

This is so silly, is Drees next ?

Either these builders stan pac, Taylor Morrison are playing narrow the inspector pool game or any strong reason behind huge insurance requirements..

[TexasHorseLady]

I have to agree with Austin Steve. On a spec home, ABSOLUTELY have an inspection done before purchase! Many things turn up that can be easily fixed before move-in, some of them things that will definitely impact your quality of life (AC issues, for example) or could damage your new home if left unaddressed before the 11 month mark. Frankly, I can't imagine not advising a client to have the home inspected prior to purchase just because it's new (yes, even the best worker can be working on your home with a hangover or after a fight with the spouse or worrying about their teenager and miss something).

[ADBL]

I am a home inspector who has recently come up against the bizarre requirements needed in order to enter Standard Pacific Properties. Let me start by saying that they require any home inspector to carry 10 times the amount of insurance required by Texas state law. Second you have to show them car insurance and third you have to sign a contract with them. Very strange indeed! My best guess is that Standard Pacific Homes is trying to keep home inspectors out of their properties. This appears to be perfectly legal as long as they retain ownership of the home. I do not intend to inspect the property and unfortunately my client will have to use one of their "approved" inspectors or walk away from the property!

[escanlan]

Originally Posted by ADBL

I am a home inspector who has recently come up against the bizarre requirements needed in order to enter Standard Pacific Properties. Let me start by saying that they require any home inspector to carry 10 times the amount of insurance required by Texas state law. Second you have to show them car insurance and third you have to sign a contract with them. Very strange indeed! My best guess is that Standard Pacific Homes is trying to keep home inspectors out of their properties. This appears to be perfectly legal as long as they retain ownership of the home. I do not intend to inspect the property and unfortunately my client will have to use one of their "approved" inspectors or walk away from the property!

Although an old thread it is an important one none the less as it displays one of the issues with builders attempting to prevent inspections of their homes. There are good builders out there that want your chosen third party Home Inspector to put another set of eyes on the home. After all it can save them time, money, and aggravations for callbacks to fix issues missed. However there are builders out there that do not want any buyer's third party Home Inspector on their build sites as they just don't want to deal with correcting deficiencies. For those builders they only want to get the home built and pushed off on the buyer.

A very important item to consider regarding some of these builders' ridiculous requirements is the potential impact it can have on you the buyer! As a Home Inspector I can refuse to sign the builders' ridiculous requirement agreements but you the buyer suffer in two possible ways. First you might have a very difficult time finding a good Home Inspector willing to sign and your inspections, if you have them, suffer. Of just as much importance are the builders that require the buyer to sign that ADDENDUM to their original purchase contract. One ADDENDUM I've seen actually appears to strip away even more of the buyer's rights and does so very craftily. You should be well aware as a buyer that if you are being forced to sign any ADDENDUM to your original contract you need to closely review it and I would recommend having an Attorney review it and your original contract to make sure you are not losing any of your rights.

If you run into these inspection addendum you take austine-steve's advice above and have your Real Estate Agent run interference and force the builder to drop that addendum requirement so that you can use any Home Inspector you choose.

[Aquitaine]

We own a Stanpac spec home in Circle C and closed last March. We are going to have it inspected at the 11 month mark.

I am unclear on how StanPac can insist on anything at all with respect to insurance requirements. They don't get to choose who we have inspect the home. They can try to get me or the inspector to sign whatever they want, but here's what isn't going to happen:

HEADLINE: STANDARD PACIFIC SUES HOME BUYER FOR WANTING HOME INSPECTED

I've heard through the grapevine that StanPac has had some upper management changes in the last several months that are not favorable to buyers (bean-counters tightening belts, in other words) and we have had to go to bat for some things. In most cases where there was any ambiguity (like all of the trees in our front yard dying 3 months after closing because of construction damage that wasn't apparent at closing) we have sought compromise rather than insisting that they pay for absolutely everything and that's worked well for us, though we've heard advice to the contrary that we should've threatened/demanded more. Not really worth it to us for the stuff that has come up but you do have to be prepared to tell the builder 'no.'

Another example is that, in the city of Austin, they have all these requirements about the % of bulbs that have to be CFLs as opposed to regular bulbs. So our kitchen has almost entirely CFLs. When we did the walk-through (prior to closing) turning on the kitchen overhead lights would blow the fuse and you'd have to go out to the garage and reset it. This was the first thing we discovered as it happened every time until the CFLs warmed up, at which point you could turn them on and off and they'd be fine. We were told "they're all like that, it's because of the city requirements" -- I'm well aware that the City of Austin makes them jump through all kinds of hoops and that many of those hoops may well be ridiculous, but that doesn't change the fact that you don't sell a $%#!% home with light switches that blow the fuse! We had to press them a little bit and they finally came by and installed an upgraded breaker....took them five minutes. It still blew my mind that they even tried to suggest that it was "supposed" to be that way!

Overall we've had decent experience with them, though. Our in-laws out in Lakeway also have a StanPac home and they had an even better experience, though theirs was about 6 months before ours.

[Komeht]

The whole point of an independent third party inspector is to get a neutral with expertise to provide an evaluation of the property. Assuming the third party is properly qualified I can't see why SP or any home builder should object. Throwing up absurd roadblocks like the insurance requirements, etc. seems very much a way for them to throw away the concept of a third party neutral and force you to go with a pre-approved inspector they've selected.

I would not agree to this under any conditions. BTW - what did the contract say about third party inspections? Was there any language restricting use?