I just spent over 5 hours with Joe Ferry. He had a class called Law and Disorder in Plymouth Meeting this morning. I wanted to tell you all about it.
I thought that it was excellent. Well worth my time. I could have made my average $1300 today, but I spent that time with Joe and other inspectors who attended. It was worth my time because I learned things that I had not thought of or was told before or read about. Those things will be now implemented in my work. I now have things to improve in my report writing (disclaimers), in my agreement (clauses), in my insurance (hold-harmless), in my methodologies (abiding to the standards of practice), and having confidence in me being fully prepared when being named in a complaint (having no fear).
I don’t want to take this time to go over everything else that Joe taught and shared - obviously impractical here, so you’ll have to give him a try.
Joe unfortunately had only 4 guys show up, yet he did not want to cancel or reschedule the class - which seemed admirable.
He had personal anecdotes that were relevant and also current litigation cases that were shared.
The syllabus was given out - so I didn’t have to concentrate on note taking, rather developed a long list of questions as the class went along.
Joe took time during the class and at the end to answer all our questions.
The law and the legal system is simply a game. There are teams and sides, rules, penalties, tricks, and time management. Money is at stake. What we as home inspectors can do as a group is easy. Use the enormous amount of information that is readily available through NACHI and its membership to develop strategies to protect ourselves while conducting business.
The winning team in the home inspection game has the best defense - a well written pre-inspection agreement, a standards of practice to which the inspection is performed, and a report with well written disclaimers and descriptive narratives. All available through NACHI.
It was a good class. Got me to take some time this weekend and do a check on my line of defense.
Benjamin Gromicko
PEACH Inspections