How to Hire a Home Inspector
It’s late Sunday afternoon and Ted drops into his living room recliner chair in an exhausted heap after spending the last six hours finalizing the deal on a house he’s purchasing. He’s looked at about 70 homes in the past 5 months and now he finally has an accepted offer on one. “Whew! Soon I’ll be in a home of my own,” he thinks to himself. Just then he remembers the folded piece of paper in his breast pocket with the names of three home inspectors his real estate agent gave him. As part of the purchase agreement he must have all the inspections of the property completed within the next ten days.
It’s Sunday so he won’t try calling inspectors until the morning. He decides to go on the Internet to see what he can learn. He searches for data about home inspectors and finds creia.org, the site for the California Real Estate Inspection Association.
It came as quite a shock to Ted when he read that California requires no licensing nor does it regulate home inspectors in any way. The state does not require any sort of registering, background checks, testing, financial bonding or insurance of any kind for home inspectors.
Ted considers this a huge risk given the fact that he now has to hire an unlicensed, unregulated person to advise him on what may be the largest single investment of his life.
He wonders how he will find a true professional to correctly evaluate and advise him on such an important decision.
Luckily, he has a few recommendations from his realtor to start with and frankly there are many professional, ethical and insured real estate inspectors in the industry to choose from, but how does he decide on the right one for him?
Here’s a list of questions to ask your candidates:
•Are you a member of CREIA or another credible real estate inspection association?
•What is your professional background? (General contractor, engineer, etc.)
•What is your construction experience? (Homebuilder, handyman, roofer, etc.)
•Do you have Errors and Omissions insurance in case of a serious miss?
•Is your report a pre-printed checklist or a narrative-style, computer-generated report with evaluations of issues?
•Is your written report delivered on site or is it delivered at a later time?
•How long do you usually spend on an inspection such as the one I’m asking about?
•If accessible do you crawl in the attic and under the building and get onto the roof?
•Will you explain the issues to me either during or at the end of the inspection?
•Will you answer questions after the day of the inspection should they arise?
Do what you can to get as many of these questions answered as possible. During the process you should be able to get some sense of what level of professional you are dealing with and how easy it will be to get your questions answered at the inspection.
The inspection of a property is a vital step in purchasing any building so it’s best if the buyer is present during the process. Ask questions until you feel you have a good understanding of what you are buying. Don’t be surprised if further investigations and evaluations by specialty professionals are needed. Sometimes issues are found with the chimney, plumbing pipes or mold, for example. This may sound like more work than you expected, but it will be well worth the effort should an expensive hidden defect be discovered. When buying any real estate, it pays to know as much as possible before you close the deal.
Hire only competent professionals to get the reliable information needed to make intelligent decisions during the escrow process. If something serious is missed, it can be difficult to get compensated for problems that are discovered after you move in. And as for Ted, the inspiration for this article, he found me and used the information in this article to hire professionals. He understood what he was purchasing before he turned over his money and now he’s very happy in his new home.
By John A. LaRocca, Certified California Real Estate Inspection Association Inspector and retired licensed general contractor. For questions or comments (818) 951-1795 or www.LaRoccaInspect.com.
