Expert: Russel Ray - 8/9/2008

Question
Hi Russell:

If an inspector were to miss a few obvious problems and many less obvious
ones that only became clear to the buyer after the sale had gone through
does the buyer have any reasonable recourse and remedy against the
inspector?  

Suppose the problems I'm referring to became clear within as little as 1 day
from the date of move in and continued to show up for the next 6 months or
somesuch.  

Thanks!

-emma  

Answer
Hey, Emma.

That's a 5-gallon can of worms that you're wanting to open! Hopefully, I can help you some here.

First, any recourse is going to be dependent on your city, county, and state laws as they apply to home inspectors and home inspections.

Second, any home has problems, and any home will continue to have problems. It's the very nature of real estate. The home inspection itself is just a snapshot of the condition of the property at a specific point in time. It's not a warranty, guarantee, or insurance for several reasons:

1 - The inspector didn't see the home being built, or the appliances being built or installed, etc., so he has no clue as to the quality of the workmanship. Lots of little things behind the skin are not visible, now or any time down the road.

2 - There's just no way that an inspector could warranty or guarantee something based on being on the property for only a few hours.

3 - Insurance is regulated in all 50 states, so providing insurance without a licensed is a civil crime, and possibly a criminal one as well.

Third, conditions at the time of the inspection can preclude the inspector from seeing things and noting them. For example, I operate in a military town where service people work graveyard shifts, so sometimes they are asleep in a room when I do an inspection. Thus, I just have to disclaim that room and anything in it due to conditions at the time of the inspection. Furnishings, storage, clothes, etc., prevent us from seeing walls, floors, closets, drawers, etc., so we just have to note those conditions.

Fourth, we would have to know how long it was between the date of the home inspection and the close of escrow, and whether or not the property was occupied or vacant at the time of the inspection. People often damage things during escrow, and since they wrongly believe that the property is not theirs anymore, they don't both filing a claim on their homeowner's insurance policy for the damage they caused.

Fifth, if the property was vacant, that presents a different type of problem because there's no one around to take care of things. Think about the haunted house in your neighborhood when you were growing up. There simply was no one around to take care of things.

Sixth, depending on the service agreement you signed with the inspector, call him and talk with him about these problems and see what he says. I've found that most problems come from first-time home owners simply because they don't understand the nature of home inspections or how to take care of the complicated thing called a home. I don't know whether or not that applies to you, but call him nonetheless.

Seventh, if you need additional help, there are a few things you can do:

1 - Email me privately at russel@russel-ray.com and I can talk with you more privately about your city, county, and state, as well as the specific inspector; I might know him or her through the various associations I'm a member of. Depending on the nature of the problem and what system or component it is, I can provide you with documents that I make available to all my Clients.

2 - Document the conditions in writing and with pictures.

3 - You can post your question on the Message Board of the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (nachi.org). Tell them that Russel Ray referred you there. If you do that, though, be prepared for home inspectors to come to the defense of other home inspectors, so to help prevent that problem, be very specific in the nature of your question. Your question here is overly broad and you'll probably get real close to any or all of my responses above. State the various problem, state the conditions at the time of the inspection and any disclosures or disclaimers your inspector noted in the report, and your city/county/state.

4 - Lastly, if you don't find satisfactory answers after talking with your home inspector about the problems, an entry at ripoffreport.com might prove useful.

Let me know if I can provide additional help.