I heard from an inspector using our software today that a TREC attorney told them the OP-I form was NOT allowed to be inserted into the Additional Inspector Information area. Now this is an option in our software and can easily be added to the end instead, but I’m curious as to why it can’t.
I had heard from several sources that it was recommended the form be distributed. Why would it be disallowed in this area? The attorney wasn’t Devon (who isn’t answering emails) and I’m waiting for the inspector to get back to me with information on who he talked to so I can call the attorney and find out directly. But what’s your opinion?
Dominic…I include OP-I as a separate, stand-alone document with my report. 7A-1 and OP-I are separately promulgated TREC forms and there are no provisions for ‘combining’ TREC forms. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I’ve had a few PM’s from guys since I posted this post saying they include it in the ADDITIONAL INFO as well. I understand that you could give them out as separate forms. But do you see anything that excludes people from including it in that area? As I read it that is for additional info the inspector would like to include. I’m just trying to decide if I should remove that option completely. Obviously once I heard from the attorney later on I’ll have to do it that way, but considering the guys who are telling me they include it there, it’s obviously not something that is understood.
As with many other TREC things there is some ambiguity there. “Additional Information Provided by the Inspector” was provided in 7A-0 and 7A-1 to allow the inspector a place to put general information about the house, i.e. weather conditions, who was at the inspection, whether the utilities were on, comments on permitting of additions, comments regarding the fact that the property is a condo and certain things apply to and are pertinent to such, etc. However, I don’t see anything specific that disallows inserting OP-I in that section but I really do think TREC will eventually not allow that for the reason I mentioned above…there are no provisions for ‘combining’ promulgated forms, they are stand-alone. Not that is has a lot of bearing but remember, even a Realtor could provide OP-I to a client, it’s not limited to HI’s.
The attorney’s recommendation to the inspector was to include it at the end as an addendum, which is fine. We’ve moved most of the Weather/Utilities/Who was on site, etc to the cover page which is now allowed by 7A-1. I guess we’ll just leave that a blank area for inspectors to fill out whatever they’d like.
I’ll have to find it on the TREC site. Looking through my email as I remember discussing this in the past, here’s part of an email (from a friend of yours) I had gotten from an inspector after one of the SOP classes.
I attended one of the new SOP – 7A-1 classes today and got some fresh updated information that was further clarified even this week by TREC Legal. The class was taught by one of the IC members.
Anyway the clarification addresses some data we traded last week. Here is the “fresh” news:
· Cover page (note: Singular … one page) is allowed. (I pushed that today as I currently have been using “two” pages as part of my cover page and ‘legal’ data. The legal data I was using is no longer required with the new preamble on the inspection report’s first and second pages (not counting the cover page). We had already clarified ‘cover pages’, but I just wanted to emphasize that it was made clear today that it was a “singular” cover page.
· You CAN put text and images below the 4 boxes in the left column. I made a large point out of being told that space was being ‘reserved’ to be sure to draw attention to the checked boxes. They had brought that up at the IC and TREC Legal meeting in Austin this past Monday and all agreed that it is ‘ok’ to use that space for images & text … don’t crowd out and or hide the boxes and due to overall spacing I don’t think that is a problem.
§535.223. Standard Inspection Report Form. [Adopted February 1, 2009] The Texas Real Estate Commission adopts by reference Property Inspection Report Form REI 7A-1, approved by the Commission in 2008 for use in reporting inspection results. This document is published by and available from the Texas Real Estate Commission, P.O. Box 12188, Austin, Texas 78711-2188.
(D) the inspector may add a cover page to the report form;
FYI: I just got off the phone with one of the TREC Attorneys (very nice guy too). He said the OP-I form is TOTALLY separate like Mike stated. It cannot go into the Additional Inspector Info and he did not even like it being an addendum attached to the same PDF file. Basically they want it distributed separately.
