The county sheriff arrives on your doorstep. Your heart sinks. A home inspection client of yours is demanding you pay for the bad results that occurred months after your original inspection.
Your goal is too be dismissed from this massive claim – which includes you, the seller, the seller’s agent, the buyer’s agent, so on and so on – but that is increasingly difficult when there has already been a substantial calorie burn on the defense attorney’s part.
And it’s nearly impossible to be dismissed once your home inspection insurance company appoints legal counsel because its financial incentive is to settle the claim for your deductible (or offer it as part of the settlement) and walk away.
Once the case has snowballed, you will soon realize that litigation is one of the most expensive endeavors known to man. Papers are passed back and forth, you must respond to all allegations, you are charged for travel and postage, you must sit through pre-trial meetings and more.
And this is all before you ever set foot in a courtroom.
In the conclusion of my answer to “how expensive is it to defend a home inspection claim?”, I examine how easy it is to stare at a $5,000 bill before the issue ever moves past the complaint stage, and the proactive measures you can take to avoid this mess altogether.