I have done dozens of inspections on homes that had been inspected weeks before, with hundreds of defects found that were not on the older reports. I pisssdd off many people, lenders, appraisers, who all missed defects that I found days later. All soft reports. All to appease the agents so the home would sell. Most all were inspectors belonging to other organizations.
They all did not have the home buyer in mind. Now, by law, soft reports are the norm. After all, everyone that has a driver’s license is a good driver, right? The agents pass the laws. Opps. Bought the laws.
I agree with Jim if when you say “bad report,” you mean “intentionally soft.” There is little either association can do about that. However, if when you say “bad report,” you mean “unintentionally weak due to incompetence” then I certainly think that ASHI is guilty of knowingly permitting their inspectors to continually generate bad reports for unsuspecting consumers by creating logistical and financial deterrents to improvement. By contrast, InterNACHI provides countless convenient and free methods for the inspector who seeks technical proficiency to achieve it, and InterNACHI has removed, for its members, all deterrents to inspection excellence. Huge difference IMHO.
I thought posting private emails while on the ESOP committee to the public was not allowed and calls for expulsion from the organization. Is that no longer a fact? If so please let me know, I have many emails to post on the message board.
Eric I wait with baited breath to read your blog on this. I don’t write soft inspection reports (as defined in that ‘article’) and even I felt it was a load.
It will probably take a little longer than I thought. Work, training and a few other things are leaving me limited time. I am going to break it down to each section.
Maybe Jim can add this to his article: If your home inspector is still a licensed Realtor, you might be getting a soft report! :mrgreen:
I think all this talk about soft reports is much ado about nothing. If an inspector engages is softening reports to buy favor with the RE, he will eventually find himself on the wrong end of a lawsuit at worst, and paying out a lot of refunds at best. He won’t be around long. Or he will shape up and do what’s best for the client.
I consider our reports to be very thorough and we still get the occasional call back. Each time we step up our report writing.
Phillippe - After 35 years, I think I can safely say:
For years, we all told ourselves that Mr Softy type inspectors with the 5 page report, that write WELL balanced reports, never killed a deal, and was loved and admired by the vast majority of commissioned real estate sales people in my area WOULD get sued out of business; get a bad rep and realtors would quit referring thim; would go broke; etc, etc.
GUESS what … NEVER happened. Mr Softy got 2-3 more inspectors and yes he got sued and lost BUT the loyal agents stood by their man and keep referring him year after year. He makes lots of $$$$$$$$$
Just like the foolish souls among our ranks that think licensing will CLEAN up the INDUSTRY. Nope … Now we got licensed Mr Softy’s.
I fully agree with you. Th busiest guy in town here is the soft guy. I know for a fact that a lot of his clients are mad at him and some have tryed to sue but he has so many disclaimers in his report there is no use. Realtors love him!!
Perhaps I’m just gun shy being in CA. You can have as many disclaimers as you want and as many limitations in your agreement, but the courts will ignore them. The CA courts have the philosophy that the person supplying the contract has an advantage as an industry insider. Therefore they simply assume that it is not in favor of the “public”. So they ignore disclaimers. That’s why we cannot limit liability contractually.
“Fair” means writing a report that is hard so you won’t get sued by the client, but without any speculation so you won’t get sued by the seller!
Hi Nick, great article. My inspection seem to rest on the kill the deal side or (Hard Inspection). Im finding the paper pushers are treating them tougher than the buyers. Recent case (I found 3 leaks (TUB, TOILET and SINK) in crawl space were leaking and of course there was standing water in crawl space. One of my inspection boiler points is… Is there a vapor barrier installed. I checked no. Under writer call it as a must repair. I had unfortunately got way to involve because of it. I explained when leaks were fix soil would dry out as it did. Underwriter claimed i should never had put it in the report. She call out a HUD reg. about ponding water. I don’t like to hold out but this was a pain in the ***. Apparently because of down payment assistance, my inspection was submitted to underwriting. Now the only realtors that use me want me to do what I do best. But this isn’t the first time this type of situation has occurred. What’s your advise on this one?
