The InterNACHI comsop is the result of 5+ man-years of research and development by InterNACHI in consultation with legal, commercial real estate and inspection industry luminaries. It establishes a comprehensive and, more importantly, perhaps, comprehensible - to both the client and the inspector - standard to be applied in the commercial building inspection context.
In my experience, the most common generators of client dissatisfaction in connection with building inspections are skewed and unrealistic notions on the part of the client of what exactly the inspector’s work product should entail. In the Law and Disorder seminar, there is a lengthy treatment of both the necessity and the technique of expectation management.
The InterNACHI comsop reduces the potential for an expectation gap to near zero. Consider, for example, Section 4.3:
** 4.3 Varying levels of due diligence** This standard is designed as a baseline from which the inspector and client can develop and agree to a scope of work that may deviate from this standard depending on budget, time constraints, purpose of the inspection, age of the subject property, and risk tolerance of the client. The level of due diligence should be set where the cost, in time and money, of acquiring information about the subject property will not likely exceed the value of that information. Therefore an inspection performed in accordance with this standard will not be technically exhaustive.
This section gives the client maximum latitude of discretion in determining the scope of the inspection depending on the wide variety of factors mentioned therein that may influence his decision. And it has the collateral effect of protecting the inspector from ex post facto expectation changes.
The comsop is, of course, continuingly reviewed for comprehensiveness, content, coherence and clarity.
It is a giant first step toward a major announcement that is forthcoming in regard to a nationwide lender network that we are developing to generate commercial inspections for the InterNACHI membership, as well as an exclusive insurance program - errors and omissions, general liability - to meet the requirements of these lenders.
Stayed tuned. Great things are coming.
