home inspector lawyer

Clarifications

When I was studying calculus in college, I thought that the text book that we used belabored a lot of points that seemed obvious to me. The book would take three or four steps to illustrate some mathematical operations that the professor would illustrate in one or two. I found this disconnect a bit annoying until a classmate explained that the author of the text could not know in advance how versed a potential reader might be in mathematical arcana so, of necessity, he would have to over-explain concepts so as not to shortchange or frustrate large segments of his readership.

I recently had occasion to recall that episode when I received an email from a home inspector that read as follows:

“I have a client making a claim and am not currently covered by an E&O policy. Are you able to assist? Does one already have to be a member of ClaimIntercept™ to use your services?”

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Disclaimers, Will They Protect You?

ASHI – NE Chapter Education Chairman, Bob Mulloy, in a recent note wrote:

Joe –

I am preparing a future seminar for ASHI, titled “Disclaimers, Will They Protect You?” 

I have numerous sample disclaimers for systems and components that I plan to present for discussion. 

Let me ask you some questions:

How would you define the difference between an Exclusion and a Disclaimer?
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When Attorneys Amend Your Agreement

One of my home inspector clients contacted me the other day for advice on what to do about a prospect whose attorney had lined out in its entirety the portion of his Inspection Agreement that a. required binding arbitration and b. required claims to be brought within one-year of the inspection.

In his transmittal email to the inspector’s prospect, the attorney wrote the following: “The stuff below that I red-lined should be removed. I don’t have a problem for him not to be responsible for stuff he does not inspect. Any questions let me know.” Italics mine.

And I, for my part, do not have a problem with this lawyer lining out those two items, especially if the inspector can exact a higher inspection fee as a result. Here’s why.
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The Irish Patient

The vast majority of my friends firmly believe that I am “lucky”. Not just lucky, but unusually so. I believe it, myself.

How many kids grow up with six older brothers to guide them along life’s journey and to straighten out wannabe tough guys? Have loving parents possessed of moral compasses that unerringly pointed True North and core beliefs in an immigrant ethos that valued hard work and resolute tenacity?

In adolescence, when we were not playing ball, my friends and I passed the time playing cards – pinochle, hearts, poker. To my friends, it seemed as though I was always shooting the moon – taking every point – which is locally known as “pulling a schnitzer”, or filling inside straights. It seemed that way to me, too.

Then I got drafted into the Army during war time, went to OCS and got commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Field Artillery. Half of my class went to Vietnam, the other half went to Korea. I went to Korea. We had a month’s leave before reporting for duty but I decided to report early and ended up with a relatively cushy assignment as Executive Officer of a Headquarters Company in a Support Command. There wasn’t an artillery piece within ten thousand meters. My CO and I were the only two combat arms officers in the entire command.
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Don’t Let Stupid Mistakes Shake Your Confidence

The other day I got a call from a home inspector who was pretty upset with himself for having done “something really stupid.” What he had done was absent-mindedly turn on the air conditioning unit of a house he was inspecting on a day when the outside temperature was forty degrees.

It was the first time that the unit had been activated since the last warm day of the previous year and it had only been on a few seconds when the inspector realized his mistake and turned it off. However, when the inspector subsequently went outside to check the compressor, it was not functioning.

Now, the compressor was twenty-five years old which is about ten years beyond their normal life expectancy. So there’s no telling whether his mistake had anything to do with the compressor’s death.

He wanted to know what he should do. I asked him who it was that wanted him to do something.
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When Clients Attack

A disturbing trend and something that I am seeing much more frequently is the tendency of home inspection claimants to threaten to harm inspectors by making reputation-destroying comments on internet rating sites and filing false complaints with Licensing Boards unless the inspector knuckles under to what are invariably unmeritorious complaints.

A recent case that surfaced out West is illustrative of the genre. The claimants bought a 38 year-old house in the desert and, upon moving in, were shocked, shocked to discover that the home’s described 125 ampere electrical service, which was more than adequate when the house was built in 1973, was insufficient to support the increased electrical loads imposed by modern day conveniences not known or in popular use in the ‘seventies.

Distressed that their starter home did not come fully retrofitted to present day standards, the claimants wanted the inspector to make it so by paying for an entirely new electric service. The inspector conducted a conference call with the claimants wherein he tried to explain as equably as he could that the adequacy and efficiency of household systems is simply not something that a home inspection is intended to determine and that, in the event, he had called out a number of issues with the system and had recommended that the claimants have it evaluated by a professional electrician prior to closing.
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Job Security

If you want job security, it would be hard to beat being an exterminator in New York City. Got roaches? Call the exterminator. Your problem is solved but now your next door neighbor has it. And the cycle continues.

Lately, I have come to the realization that I have pretty solid job security myself. Here’s a small sampling of the vermin that I have recently had to exterminate with extreme prejudice.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my ClaimIntercept™ subscribers consulted me about a claim that one of his clients was bringing after having discovered a bat infestation in his attic, some ten months after the inspection. And of course, the client is shocked, shocked that the home inspector did not manage to notice this when he inspected the attic.
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Answering The Mail

Recently, I’ve been re-publishing some posts from the archive on LinkedIn and facebook on the theory that many inspectors may never have seen the original posts. It turns out that it was a good idea, at least to judge from the tremendous uptick in the number of unique visitors that the site is attracting since then and the number of retweets and comments those archival posts have engendered.

Doug Zumach, commenting on Monday’s The Kamikaze Claimant post, asked “Joe: Won’t the inspector’s E & O premium rise for defending this case? Might it not be more cost efficient to have someone like you defend this?”

That’s a very good question that implicates one of the two major issues that home inspectors tell me concern them the most: the epic tone deafness of the insurance industry when it comes to responding to the overwhelming percentage of unmeritorious claims that plague the home inspection profession.

When an inspector receives an inquiry from a former client regarding a putative issue with an inspection, he never knows whether it will escalate into a fully-formed claim. That is how the Kamikaze Claim started out. When the inspector went back to investigate the claim, he learned that the roofing contractor had filled the client’s head with a lot of nonsense about what was causing the leaks, their provenance and the ineptitude of the inspector in failing to discover and report them.
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When Claimants Simply Make Allegations Up

Dear Joe – I am a Home Inspector of 5, very busy and successful years, here in [New England], despite the down housing economy.

I have just learned of you and have visited your website. I am very interested in learning more of your ClaimIntercept[™] Program.  Also I would like to know if your seminar titled “ Law & Disorder Seminar” is available as a DVD that I could purchase. I reside quite far away from the areas where you do any public speaking on a regular basis. I am a member of InterNACHI, and watch on their website for any further info about your Seminars maybe coming to [this] area.

Can you send me to any further information about ClaimIntercept?

My other reason for writing is that I am, for the first time, going to have a lawsuit filed against me for a “claimed omission” on a job, which is a false claim by a seller.  I do not feel I am responsible for the situation and that I did nothing wrong; it is the seller’s word against my word, basically. And that the seller is using this situation for his own gain, at my expense – to the tune of $15,000.
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Destiny and Second Acts

Years ago, when I was a member of a boutique litigation firm in Philadelphia, my partners and I would often ponder the question “How did we get this case?” What led this client to choose this law firm for this legal matter? Not infrequently that inquiry would lead to a surprising answer. The true origin would often turn out to be several degrees removed. The prospect had been referred by an existing client who had, in turn, been referred by another client and so on. It was truly remarkable how frequently a huge and lucrative legal engagement could be traced back to a minor favor performed for a person in need.

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