Your missing the point. Your work boots and hard hat were in your car[not on your person] if I’m the builder I would be pissed off at you for wasting my time.* You arrived at the inspection unprepared. As far as the builder not having his hard hat on…it’s his site he can do as he likes.As far as your pricing and your logic behind it…power to you as long as you realize that you are fcuking things up for everyone else including yourself.
BTW You will have a very difficult time raising your prices now. You will allways be known as the $199.00 man!!*
If you look at the COE on my site www.hcil.ca COE page for ASET artical 5 says 5. Uphold the principle of appropriate and adequate compensation for the performance of their work;
Yes I can believe it .
Two weeks ago an agent who I have done some inspections for called me up and asked if I would just do a quick check to make sure he had missed nothing .
This home had a pre listing inspection an his mom and dad where going to by it .
I went through then read his report .
Free wett inspection .
I took the wett course and did not write the exam, do not want the liability.
I get more inspections then I want, Thinking of raising my prices again.
He missed knob and tube, Asbestos on the Boiler pipes ,foam board on the basement walls. Big evidence of a previous fire.
When I was out side on the ground I saw the metal roof was lifted in one area and could be leaking air.
I pointed this out to the agent.
It was a walk up into attic and closed in with glass insulation.
I said remember when we where out side I said the roof was lifted well see how dark the insulation is here thats because air is leaking out and taking out dust and cooking fumes.
He said DAM! you are good ,pointing that out to me from the ground.
This was a prestine lovely old home and his parents bought it .
No idea what they are going to do with ,they are both only Eighty.
I can appreciate your prices in the Ontario area. My prices start at 250.00 for a single wide mobile and any place that is 800 sqf. Would like to know what you charge for a single wide? is that cheap or on track? I also have a return fee for no show realtors that is 100.00 i haven’t used it yet, when i do i will tell the client to charge this back to the realtor. Not sure if a client could charge back to a builder
**although you may consider my prices too cheap for what you do and what you need to charge, the same is not necessary for everyone else. **Any bonehead can look at what the industry expects and lowball to try to get some work. Every profession has the bottom feeders that lowball because they are not very good.
Oh well, being down there you can at least say… Things are looking up!
Personally, my prices work exceptionally well for me
The cheapest guy always says that, he will never admit he is not good enough to charge what a professional does.
As Mario stated, BTW You will have a very difficult time raising your prices now. You will allways be known as the $199.00 man!!.. and in the long run, it is sad for you, you will never be respected as a professional inspector. This includes by those who are professional inspectors.
I agree with Roy. It was actually Roy’s son who convinced me to charge more than my competitors. Every time I raised my prices, we got more business.
Charging too little not only weakens the industry, it is false economics.
Inspector ‘A’ does 300 inspections a year at $ 400. and earns $ 120,000.
Inspector ‘B’ does 300 inspections a year at $ 300. and earns $ 90,000.
To earn as much as Inspector ‘A’, Inspector ‘B’ needs to do 400 inspections.
He works 33% harder and longer, he takes on 33% more liability, he uses 100 more report checklist books, and his travel, etc. expenses are a lot more.
As Roy said, he might have to start doing inspections faster and start to miss more problems. Low prices also attract the tire-kickers who don’t see any value in our service, so they feel it’s worthless and tend to sue more than people who appreciate our value.
In my market I charge $ 350. minimum for each of my employees and if clients insist that I do the inspection, the minimum is $ 450, and I could be busy seven days a week if I wanted. We have ten or twelve inspectors in our market and half of them charge $ 200. or less. Only one competitor charges as much as $ 350. and that’s for a big house. Nonetheless, my employees and I do at least 80% of the inspections in this market.
People who want a lower price without considering experience and credentials are usually going to complain later. If people ask me to discount my price, I have sometimes asked them which parts of the house they don’t want me to inspect.
Another thread talked about having three or four types of inspections. For the tire kickers he has a 200.00 special that is a walk though no list no report. 300.00 Minimum system report. 400.00 regular inspection with report and photos. 595.00 full meal deal Through inspection, complete report and follow up presentation and includes follow up with licensed experts to check out specific problems.
Prices are just to demonstrate a range of services
You get the idea.
Has anyone else tried this and how did it work.
At least one SOP of another association requires a written report to be completed, thus ruling out walk-throughs. If you belong to more than one association I guess it depends whose SOP you follow. I know one association who does not like dual membership(s) unless it happens to be ASHI then thats okay. If it happens to be Nachi you will likely get flack, which is **** and bull considering the CHI controversy and how that turned out to be a tempest in a tea-pot.
I do offer walk-throughs but have only done one or two in my career and then it was under special circumstances.
A couple of years ago I did two walk throughs, no report. I did not like this process and have refused to do any inspections without a written report. Have done a number of single issue inspections but will only do them if client agrees to pay a reasonable fee that includes a written report.
My 2 cents worth.
I see Roger has doubled his prices recently Good for you Roger .
You now are just under 50% of what I charge .
I off course like to work smart not hard and we get $399:00 + taxes.
Client not at inspection I also Charge $100:00 for phone time explaining the report.
http://www.thestar.com/App_Themes/TheStar/images/logo_torontostar.gif
Ruling may have major impact on Tarion TheStar.com - living - Ruling may have major impact on Tarion
July 14, 2007
**Bob Aaron
**
An appeal decision by the Ontario Divisional Court released in April could result in a significant change in the way homeowner claims are treated under the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act (ONHWPA).
Joao Luis DaSilva Cecilio purchased a new home from a builder back in June 2000. After closing, he was unhappy with the quality of the house and made numerous deficiency claims to the Tarion warranty program.
Tarion responded to the complaints in July and October 2005. Cecilio was dissatisfied with their position and appealed to the Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT) in November that year.
One main complaint was that he heard too much noise from his neighbour’s house through the shared wall between their homes. The Tribunal had to decide whether the wall complied with the Ontario Building Code requirements for limiting sound transference.
In January 2006, the Tribunal ordered Tarion to conduct testing to check for any Code infractions and to repair the party wall, if necessary.
Tarion’s position was that it had no obligation or authority to do testing after the house was completed and it appealed the LAT decision to a three-judge panel of the Ontario Divisional Court.
At the appeal hearing, Cecilio’s lawyer, David J. McGhee, argued that Tarion’s position was contrary to the underlying purpose of the legislation, which is intended to protect the homeowner against breaches of the warranty.
Tarion’s interpretation, he told the court, “gutted” the protections meant to be in the Act and freed Tarion from its duties under the Act to inspect and test and, if necessary, do work to mitigate the breaches of warranty.
The three-judge panel, in a decision written by Justice Dennis Lane, ruled Cecilio’s “submissions make sense out of the Act, whereas the Tarion interpretation does not.”
Justice Lane wrote, “(Tarion’s) warranties only begin when the construction has been completed. It makes no sense that the power of inspection would exist only during construction … I conclude that (the legislation) authorizes inspections and tests for all purposes of the Act and is not confined to the construction period.”
The purpose of the Tarion legislation, the court wrote, “is clearly remedial consumer protection legislation and should be liberally construed … Tarion has taken the side of the builder in opposing the homeowner.”
The court ordered the case to be sent back to the Tribunal to consider whether the builder or the homeowner ought to have the test performed by an independent tester and the report distributed to the parties.
Janice Mandel, Tarion’s vice-president of corporate affairs, says Tarion won’t appeal the Divisional Court decision.
As I see it, the Cecilio case is a watershed decision, which should affect the way many Tarion claims are dealt with in the future. It could also open the floodgates of claims for similar noise complaints.
The decision clearly implies that future Tarion decisions, which do not “make sense” in light of the consumer protection mandate of the program, will be reversed by the courts.
The case also establishes that Tarion’s inspection obligations extend beyond the completion of the house, and that post-completion inspection and testing could result in a finding of responsibility by the program. I also read the Cecilio decision as a criticism by the appeal court of Tarion’s interpretation of the legislation.
The case could well point the way to a sea change in the way consumers are treated under the ONHWPA legislation – if not by Tarion, then definitely by the courts.
*Bob Aaron is a Toronto real estate lawyer whose Title Page column appears Saturdays. He can be reached at
bob@aaron.ca. Visit his website at
aaron.ca.
*
People expect a perfect product because they have paid a lot of money and our socoitey still often equates quality with price. They do not realize that a perfect product can not be constructed in a imperfect enviornment using imperfect materials.
Excluding Roy’s artical for a moment, as far as Tarion goes, home purchasers should read the perforance guidelines(or perhaps a laymens version of if) before signing the contract but that doesn’t happen. Then they might realize that they are not buying a perfect product but a product that should perform to an acceptable level.
The meat of the matter is that Tarion has not been following its mandate, but rather was ignoring it, considering that the board is made up of builders and considering the monies Tarion charges for registration, et ceteras.
Tarion? Mandate? I did two inspections early this spring where the foundation cracks were allowing water to run in. One house was 15 months old and the second 13 months. It was for the same realtor. He called Tarion on the first house and when I asked him what they said, his reply was they told him to bugger off.
I was surprised and asked what they said. He said, " I told them the crack was about 1/8 inch wide and water was coming in. The exact words were, “We are not interested in something like that and bugger off!”" I asked him if they actually told him to bugger off and he said. “Exactly those words.”
I asked him about the second crack and he said he was told unless it was at least 6mm wide, they would not even consider it. He advised there was obvious water entering on a continuous basis and was told “you are not listening… It has to be 6mm wide.”
He paid for both repairs out of his pocket to make the deals flow.
TARION? HELP? those two words should not be in the same sentence.
And so now the former CEO of Ontario New Home Warranty, now called Tarion is now the CAO of OAHI. A harbinger of things to come in OAHI? The blind leading the blind! It just gets better and better and better…
