Legal Recourse Against Inspectors Prior To Closing
Just completed another rehab, got under contract, and received an extremely detailed inspection report from buyers inspector.
Went to take care of landscaping after 5 days of being away and the back door was wide open!!! Nothing missing or damaged, and come to find out the potential buyer and agent had scheduled an "estimate" on some additional electrical upgardes they would like to negotiate only the night before.
The "building" inspection, done the week before, also yeilded a couple of broken sprinklers (worked fine before) and other details.
This deal will be done and I dont have a problem with this one. However, it got me thinking about the possibilities (after I did some yelling on the phone).
How can you prove what occured if the house is vacant and who becomes responsible for sorting out all the details.
If for example wood frame is missing on a house all of a sudden, or all the appliances were gone to to this mistake, or exposed plumbing is damaged somehow????
Any professional experience /s would be appreciated.
SG
I would think the best thing to do in this case is to take a vidio of the entire house inside and outside make sure you get the serial numbers and makes of all the items in the house. This comes in handy to show the insurance people if you do suffer a damage or worse a fire. Keep the vidion well after the closing also so if the new buyer wants to say that something is missing or damaged you can show it to them. Vidio also comes in handy when renting places also I have the people view it and sign a paper that they did just incase...
Yes that was is always my first response as I always carry my digital camera/recorder with me. It just seems that Buyer and their agents boldly feel a great deal of freedom to do ANY inpections etc of the property they wish prior to closing, even though they may not have a relationship with or knowledge of their inpspectors mothods or records.
It seems that this could potentially cause significant problems in the closing process costing the seller time and money and ultimately maybe the deal wouldnt even go through. Remedy is the real question here.
I guess it's just a chance we take. That's why I have good insurance.
SG
I always attended all home inspections done on my listings to make sure nothing weird and wild went on or that the inspector's written report didn't contain items that didn't actually come up during the inspection. One buyer's inspector tried to really cross the line once unfortunately (but fortunately for my seller I was there to witness it).
If you are not represented by an agent, then attend the inspections yourself. You or your representative have a right to be there.
Hi Nancy,
Yea I agree but I was out of town for a week and my agent was OOT the following week. So we were trying to coordinate. I'm just really suprised that the Buyers agent or anyone could just leave an entrance wide open.
What happened with the inpector you spoke about. How did he try to cross the line?
SG
Giovanini_2,
The buyer's inspector took a pen knife and cut into one of the kitchen cabinets. The issue wasn't the cabinets per se. The inspector conspired with the buyer to try to "puff up" damage to the home to get it over the deductible in the home inspection contingency clause. It was an ugly deal from that point on. Closing took several hours. Mr. Seller almost took a swing at Mr. Buyer at closing. (And I wouldn't have blamed the Seller one bit, though I did restrain him.)
For inspections in the future, if you or your listing agent can't be available, have your listing agent get a colleague to attend. I've seen too many strange things happen at home inspections and you need to have some representative there to protect you (and the property).
As for people leaving doors open or unlocked, yes this happens. People aren't paying attention. I used to follow buyers around closing, locking, etc.
One other thing--if you use combination lockboxes, change the combination so that people aren't able to have "unscheduled" inspections of the property once they know the combination.