home inspector

Home Inspectors: Use CAUTION When Combining Contract Clauses

Contract clauses pre-inspection agreements Contract clauses sometimes do not mix well. There is at least one state that will nullify contractual limitation of liability clauses when paired with arbitration clauses. (Do you know which state that is? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter and/or LinkedIn.) And we all know – or should know – that arbitration clauses in pre-inspection agreements are valuable.

Find out more about what contract clauses don’t mix and how to handle this situation in this week’s home inspector training video.
(more…)

(more...)

The Six Home Inspection Claim Categories Are All Defensible

Rare is a home inspector training Law and Disorder Seminar that does not have a few – and often several – casualties of war among the attending home inspectors – the multi-front war between them, their unreasonable and unrealistic clients, their referring real estate agents and, all too frequently, their insurance companies. They all seem to think that it is the inspector’s responsibility to “make things right”, even if he has no culpability whatsoever, which, in my experience, he almost never does. Here’s why.

Almost every home inspection claim will fall into one of the following six categories.
(more…)

(more...)

Underbussing is Now a Reality TV Show!

HGTV Show Underbusses Home InspectorsThere is a current television show whose host maligns home inspectors for not discovering defects he was only able to discover through using a sledgehammer and other intrusive means.

Home inspectors were immediately taken aback by the show’s message, and rightfully so. Several asked me to watch a few episodes to gauge how the show would play in the meritless claim game.

After watching a few episodes, and switching between disbelief and comedic release at the host’s house destruction, I came to a firm conclusion.
(more…)

(more...)

Dirty Harry and Home Inspection: You Don’t Need to Pay

There’s a scene in the original Dirty Harry movie that resonated with me when I first saw it and that I am frequently reminded of in my practice of advising home inspectors. Clint Eastwood, as Inspector Harry Callaghan, is hustling against a deadline set by a lunatic serial killer, based on the Zodiac killer that plagued San Francisco in the early ‘70s. Along the way to his rendez-vous with the killer, Harry is accosted by some street toughs whom he handles methodically despite being outnumbered. They keep coming back for more, however. Finally, exasperated by their perseverance, he whips out the huge .44 Magnum, sticks it in the face of one relentless punk and says “You don’t listen, do you, Asshole?”

Recently, one of the home inspectors who participates in my ClaimIntercept had this unhappy experience. The inspector conducted the inspection in August and was accompanied by the client’s agent on his rounds. He reported his findings in the normal fashion and everyone seemed to be happy with the results.
(more…)

(more...)

Risk, Its Place in the Home Inspection Industry and How to Combat It

The recent earthquake that hit near Japan set me to thinking about emergency preparedness in general and disaster-preparedness, in particular. The earthquake-prone nation is being widely praised for the strength of its building codes which contemplate the need for buildings to be able to withstand these inevitable periodic massive shocks to their structural integrity. And by all accounts, all things considered, the minimal damage that was sustained by buildings in cities closest to the epicenter of the huge quake has vindicated the decision to implement those precautions.

Where I live, we seldom experience earthquakes, a fact that prompted the actor David Morse [St. Elsewhere] to move here with his Philly-born wife, after an earthquake destroyed their family home in California in 1994. And the ones we do experience tend to be at the lower end of the Richter Scale. I personally have never experienced one and apparently slept through one that took place here in the early ‘70s.

We do get our share of capricious weather, however – Nor’easters, blizzards, hurricanes and the occasional tornado – for which you do have to be prepared. As President Kennedy sagely observed, “The time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining.” The time to plan for disaster is before disaster strikes.
(more…)

(more...)

The Story of Joe Ferry’s ClaimIntercept and How to Receive It

When I first began presenting my home inspector training at the Law and Disorder Seminar back in 2007, many of the inspectors in attendance would approach me afterward and ask if they could retain my claim squashing services on a pre-paid basis – a pre-paid legal of sorts.  While I appreciated the sentiment, I was very wary of providing such a service for a number of reasons.  For one, I did not have any idea of how to price such a service or, indeed, what services to provide.  Or what the inspectors’ expectations might be.  So I simply said that it was not something that I had ever considered doing but would give the matter some thought.

Three years later, after having defeated over 150 claims aborning, I really did begin to give it some very serious thought.  I thought about how truly ridiculous the overwhelming majority of claims against home inspectors are.
(more…)

(more...)

Home Inspector Attorney Fees Clauses and Their Value

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I am in my twenty-fifth year of practicing law, the last five of which have been heavily concentrated on the representation of home inspectors. Over the years, close to 1500 inspectors have attended my home inspector training at the Law and Disorder Seminar, which itself has undergone major revisions as I have continued to develop defense strategies and techniques in response to the large volume of claims that home inspectors are continually asking me to help neutralize.

My experience handling claims against home inspectors has caused me to completely reverse my position respecting provisions in Inspection Contracts that call for the prevailing party in disputes arising from the home inspection to be awarded its attorneys fees. The so-called American Rule is that each party to litigation is responsible for its own attorneys fees. The British Rule is that the prevailing party is awarded its attorneys fees.
(more…)

(more...)

Don’t Get Caught in Pre-Sale Inspections Trap

Pre-Sale Inspection Trap - Tip 34Sellers are encouraged to obtain home inspections prior to listing their house for sale.

That said, home inspectors MUST be aware of exposing themselves to liability to non-client third parties.

Home inspectors run into problems when someone with whom the home inspector does not have a contract claims to have been warned by the alleged negligence of the home inspector.

In this week’s video tip, I discuss why home inspectors like you should not get caught in the pre-sale inspection trap, illustrate how you can avoid it and detail an example from a case I recently handled.

(more…)

(more...)

Store Your Home Inspection Reports in The Cloud

A home inspector recently asked me, “Joe, how long should I keep my inspection reports?”

Home Inspection Report StorageInstead of using a lot of paper, rely on an electronic version for your own records. There are various free electronic storage options that are beneficial to home inspectors, who are looking to store 250-plus inspection reports, along with corresponding photographs.

I look at these storage options and the benefit of using electronic storage in this week’s video blog.
(more…)

(more...)

Cooling Off a Fraudulent Home Inspection Claim

The number one complaint that I receive from home inspectors is that insurance companies simply cave in and pay claimants even when the home inspector has done nothing wrong. I used to think that this was just general professional bellyaching that had no basis in reality but that was before personally squashing hundreds of claims that were absolutely ridiculous.

A lot of home inspectors have rather large deductibles on their Professional Liability Insurance [E & O] policies, up to $5,000 in some cases. And I can understand why they do that. For one thing, the higher the deductible, the lower the premium. For another, they just don’t believe that they are ever going to be called upon to respond to a claim from one of their clients.

This belief is based on the fact that they have a lot of confidence in their professional skills, a belief that is entirely justified in my experience. The problem is that you do not have to conduct a negligent inspection to be accused of having done so. You merely have to have a client who thinks that you did. And unfortunately, those sorts of clients abound.
(more…)

(more...)