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Home inspections are not very good at uncovering non-obvious issues. Some people want to get validation or guarantee they have a solid house without problems,

Home inspections are not very good at uncovering non-obvious issues. Some people want to get validation or guarantee they have a solid house without problems, however inspectors will not (cannot) dig in to find out the extent of a problem, and most trivial problems will be documented as 'recommend licensed contractor to repair' The real value in a home inspection is to have leverage to negotiate your offer down from where you started. "Licensed home inspector says this is a potentially unsafe electrical panel. My counter offer is $4000 lower"

verelo 8y ago
Sadly in the Toronto market, the issue runs even deeper. Home inspections are almost always provided by the seller, and if you try get your own, as the market is so hot, the sellers typically refuses to allow it. Home inspections are mostly useless (i want to say always, but im sure there is some exception out there), but they're even more useless when they're provided by the seller and the market is so healthy that they don't feel the need to allow an independent view.
- sgslo 8y ago
  In the US, at least, inspectors are liable for issues not uncovered during the initial inspection. Seller-hired inspector missed a malfunctioning AC unit? It's on the inspector - or their insurance - to cover the cost of a fix.
  - jandrese 8y ago
    Yeah, they turn it on and cold air blows, check box. Not as many will tell you that the AC unit is 26 years old and likely to die soon. In my experience you have a 50/50 shot of them actually telling you that, but my sample size is very small.
  - verelo 8y ago
    For large appliances yes (AC/Oven/Stove/HVAC etc), that should happen, but for other issues it's 50/50 on if you'll get covered (probably even less). Single data point: I just (last week) had a title insurance claim for ~$21,000 for re-wiring of a property denied, despite the fact that I have documentation from the purchase process stating "All Knob and Tube wiring has been removed", and a home inspection report (seller provided) that did not uncover any K&T wiring. It was missed because whoever "removed" the old wiring (owner before the previous owner) left old wiring in between circuits and the outlets, which we found by accident when removing part of a wall. Electrical safety code requires that if we need to revise any wiring on these circuits that we bring them to current code, which to confirm there is no old wiring left at all means deactivating the circuit and re-running the entire circuit. Additionally my home insurance does not cover K&T wiring, as such i have 60 days to become compliant or my insurance is void. My option here is now to lawyer up, which at best, I'm going to get $21k out of, for a $1.58m house. There should be stricter and clearer liability here, but unfortunately it's just not how the law is structured here in Toronto.
- maccard 8y ago
  I'm in Scotland. Seller provides a home inspection, done by an independent company. I don't have any reason to believe that the surveyor the seller hired is hiding information from me, and if they did, that would be fraud (and an expensive legal pursuit). Compared to England, where every prospective buyer has to pay 3-400 pounds for a survey, as no bank will give a mortgage without one, I prefer having the seller provide the survey. However, the surveys are useless themselves. None of the reports I viewed had any information I didn't see myself in the property, and as I was looking at victorian tenements, they all have warnings about pointing, flat roof, old guttering, which are present in _every_ 150 year old stone building...
  - jandrese 8y ago
    > Seller provides a home inspection Conflict of interest. They know most people won't sue them over issues, especially if the courts are just as likely to side with them outside of some truly egregious violation.
    - verelo 8y ago
      Thats the real point I was trying to make. It's just not how the money should flow, the incentive should be to protect the buyer not the seller.
    - maccard 8y ago
      You can't just hand wave away an independent surveyor. The number of professional surveyors in my area is surprisingly low, and if I were to pay for my own survey I would likely end up using the same form as the seller used (in my area at least). There is also plenty of precedent for courts to side with the buyers in misrepresentation cases in the UK. The law has provision for 2 years in prison, and surveyors have been jailed previously for lying on surveys.

verelo 8y ago

Sadly in the Toronto market, the issue runs even deeper. Home inspections are almost always provided by the seller, and if you try get your own, as the market is so hot, the sellers typically refuses to allow it. Home inspections are mostly useless (i want to say always, but im sure there is some exception out there), but they're even more useless when they're provided by the seller and the market is so healthy that they don't feel the need to allow an independent view.

sgslo 8y ago
In the US, at least, inspectors are liable for issues not uncovered during the initial inspection. Seller-hired inspector missed a malfunctioning AC unit? It's on the inspector - or their insurance - to cover the cost of a fix.
- jandrese 8y ago
  Yeah, they turn it on and cold air blows, check box. Not as many will tell you that the AC unit is 26 years old and likely to die soon. In my experience you have a 50/50 shot of them actually telling you that, but my sample size is very small.
- verelo 8y ago
  For large appliances yes (AC/Oven/Stove/HVAC etc), that should happen, but for other issues it's 50/50 on if you'll get covered (probably even less). Single data point: I just (last week) had a title insurance claim for ~$21,000 for re-wiring of a property denied, despite the fact that I have documentation from the purchase process stating "All Knob and Tube wiring has been removed", and a home inspection report (seller provided) that did not uncover any K&T wiring. It was missed because whoever "removed" the old wiring (owner before the previous owner) left old wiring in between circuits and the outlets, which we found by accident when removing part of a wall. Electrical safety code requires that if we need to revise any wiring on these circuits that we bring them to current code, which to confirm there is no old wiring left at all means deactivating the circuit and re-running the entire circuit. Additionally my home insurance does not cover K&T wiring, as such i have 60 days to become compliant or my insurance is void. My option here is now to lawyer up, which at best, I'm going to get $21k out of, for a $1.58m house. There should be stricter and clearer liability here, but unfortunately it's just not how the law is structured here in Toronto.
maccard 8y ago
I'm in Scotland. Seller provides a home inspection, done by an independent company. I don't have any reason to believe that the surveyor the seller hired is hiding information from me, and if they did, that would be fraud (and an expensive legal pursuit). Compared to England, where every prospective buyer has to pay 3-400 pounds for a survey, as no bank will give a mortgage without one, I prefer having the seller provide the survey. However, the surveys are useless themselves. None of the reports I viewed had any information I didn't see myself in the property, and as I was looking at victorian tenements, they all have warnings about pointing, flat roof, old guttering, which are present in _every_ 150 year old stone building...
- jandrese 8y ago
  > Seller provides a home inspection Conflict of interest. They know most people won't sue them over issues, especially if the courts are just as likely to side with them outside of some truly egregious violation.
  - verelo 8y ago
    Thats the real point I was trying to make. It's just not how the money should flow, the incentive should be to protect the buyer not the seller.
  - maccard 8y ago
    You can't just hand wave away an independent surveyor. The number of professional surveyors in my area is surprisingly low, and if I were to pay for my own survey I would likely end up using the same form as the seller used (in my area at least). There is also plenty of precedent for courts to side with the buyers in misrepresentation cases in the UK. The law has provision for 2 years in prison, and surveyors have been jailed previously for lying on surveys.