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The rules of repair for home inspectors

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, November 24, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: As a Realtor, I have wondered about the differing business practices of home inspectors and termite inspectors. Home inspectors, as a rule, never do repairs on the properties they inspect.

Termite inspectors, on the other hand, routinely repair the defects listed in their reports. They even include bids for repairs at the end of every report. Home inspectors view repair work as a conflict of interest. Termite inspectors view repairs as an essential part of their business. Can you explain this inconsistency? --Kay more...

Home inspector no-nos

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, November 17, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: Our home is listed for sale. We accepted an offer a few weeks ago, but the buyers canceled the deal after the home inspection. The home inspector reported numerous problems with the foundation and structure.

We immediately hired a licensed structural engineer who determined that the foundation and structure are sound and that the home inspection report was inaccurate. So now we have a disclosure problem for future buyers. There are two conflicting reports, and both must be disclosed. What should we do? --Kim more...

Townhome repairs no laughing matter

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, November 10, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: We own a townhome and are trying to deal with the fools who run the homeowners association (HOA). Last month, we had a major roof leak that wiped out our master bedroom ceiling. The HOA is supposed to maintain the roof, but they've neglected it for years. Now that their negligence has damaged our home, they refuse to pay for interior repairs. They say the interior is our responsibility. A lot they know about responsibility. At the last HOA board meeting, we requested that they pay to replace our ceiling, and they dismissed this as though it was a joke. What can we do to get some fair treatment? --Karen

DEAR KAREN: The HOA is in no position to be laughing. Instead, they should rethink the situation. Under ordinary circumstances, interior repairs are paid by the homeowners. more...

Little house of septic system horrors

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, November 3, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: We bought our home about two years ago, and everyone said the septic system was OK. This was the first home we ever owned with a septic tank, so we didn't know any better.

A plumber was hired to inspect it, and no problems were found. But last week, the water main broke, the tank got flooded, and sewage backed up into the house. That's when we learned that the septic tank is under the concrete floor in the garage, the tank is collapsing, the leach field is under the driveway, and the water main is over the tank. more...

'War stories' of a home inspector

By Barry Stone, Wednesday, October 28, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: My friend is a home inspector, and he sometimes tells me crazy stories about buyers, sellers and agents. I've been reading your column for years, and you've covered countless topics of interest. But you've never mentioned any personal experiences from the trenches. How about a couple of interesting stories? --Ben

DEAR BEN: I'm grinning broadly as I write this. Great question, by the way.

The main character of the first story was a rather disturbed lady who rented the home that was scheduled for inspection. more...

Bridging the divide on REO inspections

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, October 20, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: My friend is trying to buy a house and is concentrating on foreclosed properties. He usually makes an offer and then hires a home inspector. If the inspector finds many problems, my friend doesn't buy the house. So far, he's done this twice. What seems unfair is that the next buyer who comes along has to pay for a home inspection when one has already been done. This seems like a rip-off.

If an existing inspection report were available to download, a buyer could simply ask the seller if any repairs have been done since the last dated inspection. How many times must a home be inspected in such a short period of time? --Roy more...

Resolving 'hidden' home defects

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, October 13, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: I just purchased a home and am disappointed with the home inspector I hired. The first time I used the air conditioner, water dripped from the bedroom ceiling. My contractor found a broken air conditioner pipe in the attic. Besides that, there is a switch next to the living room fireplace that turns off the outlets in the master bedroom. The seller must have turned this off before moving out, because there was no power in the bedroom when I moved in. I had to hire an electrician to figure this out. It seems that the inspector didn't even inspect the fireplace, or he would have found the switch.

So far, I've paid $347 for the contractor and the electrician. Shouldn't the home inspector pay for these repairs? --Suzanne more...

Builder retired, won't fix defects

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, October 6, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: My home was built about 10 years ago. I've had trouble with it ever since, and the builder avoids all responsibility. From leaky windows to settlement cracks, it's been one thing after another. When the home was three years old, I called the builder's home and was told that I had the wrong number. Finally, this year, I was able to reach him. He told me that he is retired and gave me the number of another contractor to fix the problems. But that means I'll have to pay for his mistakes. Isn't he responsible to fix the defects in my house? --Tina

DEAR TINA: Your builder is suffering from DNS -- Dirty Nerve Syndrome. Without question, he should take responsibility for the home that he built. If there were defects from the beginning, then he should address those issues, regardless of how retired he may feel. more...

Building inspectors vs. building codes

By Barry Stone, Wednesday, September 30, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: As a carpenter and contractor, I meet building inspectors who allow construction that is not built to code. When I asked one inspector about this, he said that he has the authority to approve work that is not to code if he finds the quality of materials and workmanship to be sufficient.

Somehow, this doesn't seem right. What's the point of having a building code if inspectors can set whatever standards they wish? --Charles more...

Fixed defects: 'water under the bridge'?

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, September 22, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: My home was inspected about eight months ago, but the buyer backed out of the deal. Since then, I've paid contractors to repair the defects that were found by the buyer's home inspector. Now the home is back on the market, everything has been fixed, and I don't know if I'm required to disclose the old inspection report to future buyers. What are the rules regarding the disclosure of a past home inspection report? --Lou

DEAR LOU: The rules that govern real estate disclosure vary from state to state, but the basic requirement is to disclose every known condition that could be of concern to a buyer. Most buyers are not concerned about conditions that have been repaired, except to know that the repairs were done correctly and completely. more...

Diagnosing a leaky water heater

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, September 15, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: We have a 50-gallon water heater in our basement. It's only 7 years old, but it has always leaked from the drain pipe on the pressure relief valve. We've tried everything to stop the leak. We turned down the thermostat, flushed out the tank, and replaced the relief valve twice. But the problem always returns. Why doesn't this leak stop after all we've done to fix it? --Mark

DEAR MARK: Before answering your question, a few words should be said in praise of "temperature pressure relief valves," commonly known as TPR valves. A water heater is not safe without a TPR valve. Its primary purpose is to prevent an explosion when a water heater becomes too hot. TPR valves have been mandatory for all water heating systems since the late 1960s. Before then, an overheated tank could become a bomb, causing massive property damage and possible injury or death to nearby occupants. more...

Overlooked mold grows buyer costs

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, September 8, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: Before buying my home, I hired a home inspector. He found a few minor defects, but the report was basically clean. Then, after moving in, I found a large growth of black mold at the bathtub plumbing access. The mold growth was so pervasive that a large portion of the house had to be gutted and refinished. If our inspector had done a more thorough job, we could have saved thousands of dollars in repair costs. Do we have any recourse against our inspector? --Laurie more...

Honey, the appraisal shrank our home

By Barry Stone, Wednesday, September 2, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: Our 70-year-old house was appraised this morning, and the appraiser refused to count two of the bedrooms. In fact, she officially downgraded our house from a three-bedroom to a one-bedroom home. One bedroom was discounted because it is too small -- about 7 feet by 8 feet -- and because it has no closet. The other bedroom is in the basement, and the window is too small to meet code. The appraiser listed both rooms as dens. This doesn't seem fair because these rooms have always been used as bedrooms, and this appraisal drastically lowers the value of our home. What can we do? --Jeff

DEAR JEFF: Regardless of how those rooms were used in the past, appraisers are bound by the constraints of established building standards and the risks of professional liability. more...

Nix aluminum wiring fire hazard

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, August 25, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: My home has aluminum wiring. In one of your articles, you recommended copper pigtails on the wire ends to eliminate a fire hazard. So I called my local building department to get their advice. The building inspector I spoke to is a retired electrician who became a county building inspector. He told me that aluminum wiring is safe as long as it is not overloaded, and that connecting aluminum wire to copper "pigtails" is not advisable. He said the only way to eliminate the hazards caused by aluminum wire is to completely rewire the house. With two conflicting opinions, whom do I believe? --Nancy

DEAR NANCY: It is surprising that a professional building inspector and former electrician would be unaware of aluminum wire issues and the accepted method of correction. This has been widely recognized within the electrical profession for many years. more...

The sale that could've been

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, August 18, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: A home inspector recently came to our house and scared off our buyers with false assumptions about our foundation and with nit-picky disclosures of all kinds. Our foundation was actually repaired last year, but we never patched the stucco crack that occurred before the repair work was done. The home inspector assumed that the crack occurred after the foundation was repaired. He reported this to the buyers, and they bailed out of the deal. He also stated in his report that the stream at the bottom of our property (nowhere near our house) is "a major erosional feature." On the nit-pick side, he mentioned such things as a small stain on our carpet and a scratch on the bedroom door. How can we market our home to other buyers with this kind of inspection report to disclose? --Ginny

DEAR GINNY: When home inspectors report defects, they should state what they see and limit their conclusions to things they can confirm. If an inspector sees settlement cracks in a stucco wall, the cause may be apparent, but the age of the crack can rarely be determined. more...

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