Posted by River City on September 16, 2004 at 11:52:01:
Why don’t you call the inspector and pretend to be someone interested in purchasing a home and ask them why you should get a home inspection. Ask them if after you move into the home and things are found are they liable. If they say yes, tell them who you are and nail them to the wall. Just make sure you have someone else on the other phone listening in. But, in any event, I would think they would have an errors and omissions policy that would cover them for poor inspecitons. $39,000 is an awful lot to miss in home inspections. Good luck.
My husband and I have purchased our first home. We read the sellers disclosure carefully and requested the home inspector address the crack over the bathroom door and morning glories growing up from the baseboards. It’s a small town so the realtor said there was only one inspector (we later found out there was another within 1 hr) The inspector,after looking in the attic and finding no problems there stated someone must have gotten real angry and slammed the door. The sellers told inspector that the crack reappeared twice after patching. H.I. said it would not have reappeared if done properly. As for the Morning Glories, the H.I. said weeds can be very stubborn and not uncommon to creep into homes. So we bought the home. After all, sellers checked no to soil settlement knowledge and inspector concluded the structure was sound and crack not a cause for concern.
When the measurements were taken for carpet/vinyl I inquired why wouldn’t the baseboards be flushed with the floor. The carpet guy said the floor had dropped due to the weight of the fireplace. It seemed to make sense now why there was a crack above the bathroom door. We requested the inspector come back. He stated since there was furniture and moving boxes he didn’t see the gap by the firplace,and the sellers computer desk concealed floor settlement in one of the bedrooms. I can probably accept that since the American Society of Home Inspectors state H.I. do not need to move furnishings. What I do not accept is upon 2nd visit the H.I. stated “Why didn’t we notice the gap under the bathtub and behind the toilet?” (in the master bath where the crack is above the door) Is he liable for his oversight? We already had a contractor estimate cost of repairs to be $39,000. With three kids we just don’t have that kind of money and I know the sellers don’t either. But, if we had claim against the inspector, we could collect against his insurance. Please Help. Signed a Very Stressed Mom
P.S. I don’t know if we may have waived our rights when we checked off a box on the contract that states inspections were done to our satisfaction. Is this statement intended to purposely have a double meaning. We’ve been told that we may have waived any inadequacies on part of the inspector. Please tell me this is not so. (Why bother having a H.I. if that’s what it means)