mcohen
(Mark Cohen, InterNACHI General Counsel and Corporate Secr)
1
Greetings:
An inspector recently called me and expressed concern about a home warranty company that had informed a homeowner the inspector had been negligent and missed a number of things. Of course, the warranty company employee had no knowledge of what InterNACHI’s Standards of Practice require.
InterNACHI wants to send a clear message to home warranty companies, Realtors, and others in the industry to refrain from making such comments when they have never reviewed the SOP’s and have not seen inspection agreement. Put differently, InterNACHI is looking for someone to sue.
If you are aware of such an incident, please email me with the facts and relevant information. My email is mark@cohenslaw.com We would love to find someone who did this in Colorado so that InterNACHI can file the suit in Colorado.
I’ve seen that in many areas for well over 10-15 years.
When a licensing task force was in session in Kansas back in 2008 - 2009 to get different groups feedback on the NEED to get HI’s licensed …
We had the head of one of the local warranty companies in Kansas speaking in front of the Realtors Board explaining what poor jobs inspectors did BECAUSE he continually saw people close on a home AND immediately upon move-in call the warranty company to come fix something that was OBVIOUSLY broken or that had a preexisting condition to start with.
He used HVAC systems as an example … AC units low on freon and not cooling AND he discussed furnaces with lots of debris and scale on the walls SO when the warranty company came out for a “no heat call” OR “the flame blew out the front of the furnace, etc” … The cleaned the units and found holes in the heat exchanger. The other warranty companies and realestators were eating that up.
I got tired of listening to his mouth and intervened AND was a little blunt in my response … I politely told the audience that as a licensed HVAC tech and a 30 year home inspector I hoped he was better selling warranties than he was at talking about home inspectors BECAUSE he didn’t seem to know squat about us.
I then went on to explain that UNDER the SoP of EVERY home inspection association we did NOT use freon gauges AND went on to explain that the EPA certification to handle freon meant. I then explained that as a HVAC tech I often had to disassemble and wire brush out a heat exchanger OR use a borescope to be able to verify holes OR not in the heat exchanger. I then went on to explain that UNDER the SoP of EVERY home inspection association I knew of we did NOT
scrape heat exchangers, etc.
We shut-down their talks that day by showing how ignorant BOTH the warranty company AND realtors were about what we do.
I’ve also heard a conversation MANY times that goes like this:
Then when the warranty company comes out AND says **preexisting condition, **instead of remembering the realestator advised … ALL anybody thinks of is the inspector missed it. Lets call it like it really is MUCH of the time.
Mark,
What is worse an insurance company bad mouthing inspectors, or a home inspector claiming to be a InterNACHI member in his advertising so he can perform subpar inspections? Then the local Realtors pointing out to their buyers and lenders that this inspector is certified by InterNACHI, so InterNACHI inspectors must not know what they are doing. You cannot blame it on the Realtors for coming up with that conclusion.