Attorney Greg Pyfrom Is Back With More Legal Advice for Home Inspectors

In this episode John Laforme is joined by home inspection attorney Greg Pyfrom. Greg shares his 30 years of legal experience dealing with home inspection claims against home inspectors.
Greg offers more legal tips to better cover yourself as a home inspector.

John and Greg cover some report writing tips regarding condo inspections vs home inspections and how to deal with foundation and roof systems.

And yes You Need to Carry Errors and Omissions and General Liability Insurance.

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John Laforme
Certified CREIA Inspector Member #0155263
Home Inspection Authority LLC

Former President of CREIA Mid Valley Chapter
Former Vice President of CREIA Mid Valley Chapter

You Can Contact Greg Directly for your home inspection legal advice.

Gregory C. Pyfrom, Sr., Esq.
Gregory C. Pyfrom & Associates, Inc.

1534 North Moorpark Road, #324
Thousand Oaks, California 91360
Office: (818) 433-3666
Cell :   (805) 207-4888
Email:  greg@pyfromlaw.com

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Transcript

John Laforme: 0:00

Buying a home. Don't panic. Just listen to the rest of this podcast Alright everybody, welcome back to another episode of Home Inspection authority's Straight Talk podcast with me, John laforme. I'm a CREIA certified home inspector from Los Angeles, California. And the topics we discuss on this podcast are about buying homes, selling homes, inspecting homes. So if you're a home inspector, home buyer, real estate professional, this podcast is definitely for you. So let's get into some straight talk about home inspections. Everybody, welcome back to the show. This is a special day. Today is the first episode of season two. It's actually been a year as of yesterday, so. So anyway, I want to thank everybody, for all the support on you know, listening to the podcast, and you know, watching on YouTube and everything else, I really appreciate it. So I'm going to keep on making these podcasts and put them out for you. And I'm going to keep having great guests like great care, and try to try to get as much education out there for everybody. And a but do me a favor, leave comments. I would I would appreciate like more interaction if you guys could do that. Everybody listening and watching any kind of comments. You know, maybe we said something you're not familiar with? Yeah. Don't be afraid to ask a question. Or if there's topics you want us to talk about, by all means, let me know. You can leave. You can leave reviews on the podcast itself. You can actually leave comments on the YouTube versions as well. So I just trying to get people to get a little more interaction going. Greg, what's up?

Greg Pyfrom: 2:02

Not a lot.

John Laforme: 2:04

Not a lot. Not a lot. Well, I have some stuff to talk about.

Greg Pyfrom: 2:09

I figured you would.

John Laforme: 2:11

And I know you have stuff to talk about. So we're gonna we're gonna get into quite a few few different topics here today. So a case you don't know Greg, by the way, Greg's an attorney for the home inspector, the home inspectors in the home inspection, Home Inspection industry, and you're a litigation attorney, correct? That's correct. All right. And well, what I want to ask you about today is something that's constantly on my mind when I'm doing condo inspections, so you know, with with the whole Korea standards of practice, and the basically the Standards of Practice talks about everything in a single family home, which is a detached building, roofing, electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling and foundation, right? That's correct. Those are the five major systems. And when it comes to a condo, there's to me there's two different types. Some people refer to townhomes as condos, so it's all in the translation. So when somebody calls me and asked me for a quote, oh, yeah, I have a condo and you inspect it. Okay, well, is it a first thing I asked? Is it a townhome, or is it a condo? And they're like, Huh, I'm like, Well, does it have multiple floors? Does it have its own garage under it? That to me is a townhome. Now there's two different types of townhomes. There's also a townhome that has subterranean parking under it, but it still has multiple floors, which means that person does not have their own personal garage. They just have a personal parking space. So I asked those questions, because the two different types of townhomes are still townhomes to me. They're not condos, necessarily. And the reason why I say that is because there's always the basic garden style condo, which is just one floor. And so when people are calling for inspections on condos, I got to be very specific with them say look, because then what are you going to cover? You're going to do this, you're going to do that you're going to do the roof. You're going to do all this. Most of the time No, I'm not going to do the roof because most of the time the condo inspecting is not on the top floor. There's no roof right above it, you just meet your neighbors above you and in the foundation. So my question here for you is how do you deal with that? On the report writing side, so I'll give you a scenario. So what I do is I let my client know I'm going to be doing the interior, the windows, any attached balconies. Sometimes you go outside of the balcony. There's a utility closet with a water heater in it. So yeah, I'm going to check all that stuff. But I'm not going to be, you know, checking the hallways, I'm not going to be checking the elevators, fire sprinkler systems and stuff like that. So do you have any advice for me on how I should call out the report? On the condo side? Should I even mention Foundation? In the condo report? Because that's part of the bigger structure. So how do I handle that?

Greg Pyfrom: 5:30

Well, again, approaching it upfront and saying exactly what you have is the most important factor, because you're going to be giving a quote, and you also are going to be preparing a report. So most importantly, the distinctions you've made, or distinction that should be made up front. Okay, so now you're past that, let's assume it is simply a condo? The answer is mentioning that you do not cover the foundation is an important ingredient. And I would suggest that a short section under Foundation, stating that because this is a condominium project, that is not subject to your inspection, I would make that clear. And if you have a section up above that says what you do and what you don't do, I would have just a short one liner there too. So you've told them twice, you don't do the foundation, and under the condo association and all the other bills that go with that. Were very clear. That is not part of the the duty or the responsibility of the homeowner. Okay, it is excluded. So yes, that's the best way to handle it.

John Laforme: 6:43

Right. So don't leave the report blank without a foundation section. Make sure there's still a foundation section in your condo report. Just Just make sure you make that sentence very clear.

Greg Pyfrom: 6:55

I would say yes. But most of the software, if you have good software has an automatic section for foundation. So all you do is add the one sentence, and it's Get Out of Jail Free card, something comes up, okay. You're not responsible. And that's the key to this. Right. But

John Laforme: 7:11

understand, report writing software is, you know, interchangeable, like you can add stuff and delete stuff. So you can't kind of use that I wouldn't use that approach to it. Like it should be there. It because everybody modifies the reports. So that's the reports I use the report software I use is Spectre software. To me. I think it's the best thing on the market right now. I have I've yet to see anything better. And yeah, it's customizable. Everything's customizable. So you put what you want. But like I said, my question is always been bugging me for several years. And like doing another condo report. I'm like, Man, do I even need this section here? It says it in the standards of practice, but it's clearly for me to even look at the foundation, I have to look at the entire building, which could have 20 to 50 units. That's not what I'm here for. So it's kind of like a grill a gray area. I think with most most inspectors, especially if someone's just learning this whole process. They're going to need to know what you just said.

Greg Pyfrom: 8:21

You're going to have it is yeah, don't exclude something to your deficit. Right? The answer is putting a one liner in saying I don't do the foundation because it's a condominium association. Responsibility is the best thing to do.

John Laforme: 8:38

Okay. You got any jokes today?

Greg Pyfrom: 8:41

Not really, today is not a great joke day. We've all seen the stock market. So I don't think I don't think that's kind of an issue for myself. It was in the green this morning. Yes, there's a lot of things in the green including electricity to your shirt. Right. Good Irish boy. He has to wear green,

John Laforme: 9:00

good Irish boy. Okay. All right. Well, I think I think that answers my question pretty well on that. Now let's talk about condo roof situations. So let me tell you what I typically have written in my reports, like I said, condos come in different shapes and sizes. And you're not going to know what it is until you actually get there because realtors and buyers are just not going to be able to answer those questions for you. So sometimes I'll do a it'll be a three story building and I'll be doing the condo on the third floor. So there's a roof right above it. Now you walk up if there is stair access, I don't climb suicide ladders on the side of buildings. If there is a staircase access, I will go up there. But you can't tell where the unit starts and stops because it's just a one. It's just a big ocean of roof. So I have a comment in my in my report and it basically says I'm not verbatim, but I'm just going to try to, you know, remember right now completely. So basically it says, roof covers multiple units of building inspector cannot determine exactly where your roof starts and ends. So I can't comment on, you know, that specific covering on your unit itself. So I put that in there. And I'll put some pictures in there. And I'll let them know if I see damage regardless. That's how I word that. Any advice on that?

Greg Pyfrom: 10:29

Well, there's one thing that I just left out of the foundation, and that is the referral to the homeowners association. Okay, any questions? Okay, I would use the same one for the roof. Now, obviously, if the interior of the ceiling has discolorations, you want to call that out immediately, of course, directly to the homeowners association. But the same rule applies as to the foundation as it does to the roof. And depending upon how it's structured and access, you want to be very careful about walking out a roof that you don't know too much about. So I would again, if it, the inside ceilings look good. You can go up and take a look for any obvious defects. But again, you refer it directly to the homeowners association during the escrow period.

John Laforme: 11:17

Yeah. I think adding a photo of the roof if it's safely accessible is a good

Greg Pyfrom: 11:22

idea. It's it's never a bad idea.

John Laforme: 11:25

Never a bad idea. So I definitely would push that on anybody. So yeah, that's a good good tip. Good tip right there, Greg. Thanks. All right. So. So the roof and the foundation are the kind of gray areas that I think most of us have run into and like how do I report that today? Because they're always different condos are always a surprise. You never know what's gonna find up there. And loud. Let me get an overhead. Let

Greg Pyfrom: 11:54

me go one step further. Sure. How do you know whether or not it's a conversion from an apartment building? The same thing applies.

John Laforme: 12:02

Sometimes I get lucky. And they tell me, i The point

Greg Pyfrom: 12:05

I'm trying to get too is remember all the access ways in the stairways, all of that is outside your ability to opine. Right? So keep this in mind whenever you're doing a condo. Because you don't know. And because you can't find out. It's outside your duty. And you simply explained that you are doing from the inside of the front door through the accessible areas of which you have direct control. After that. You don't.

John Laforme: 12:37

Okay, just want to let you know that you talked a little lawyer there for a second. So use the word called opine. So can you explain to everybody what that means?

Greg Pyfrom: 12:44

Do you have an opinion? Okay. I won't use the word Ely, Amman scenario. Okay.

John Laforme: 12:50

All right. Every once in a while, I gotta remind Greg, he's an attorney. And we're not. layman's terms, please. Alright. So another thing about condos, regarding gas meters, main main service drops and stuff like that. So most of the time, I cannot tell a client, what size their sub panel is. Because it's not labeled, not labeled

Greg Pyfrom: 13:19

appropriately.

John Laforme: 13:23

So it's not labeled appropriately. And you know, a lot of times we don't have access to the main to let actually look at that particular breaker that controls that the feeder that controls that sub panel. So that's another thing. So oftentimes, you know, I go into condos, and I can't give them a lot of like factual information. You know what I mean? Like, hey, because I want I can't access the gas meter. I just can't get to that side of the building. It's locked for whatever reason. So there's a lot of lot of limitations with condos. But you want to make sure you point that out if it's not accessible, put it in there, not accessible, not commented on, not inspected. Just just little things like that, that come up a lot. And to me, it's kind of like, I like to give my customers as much information as possible. That's what they're paying me for. But there's so many limitations on condos, some days. I don't like doing them.

Greg Pyfrom: 14:19

Well, again, if you defer, yeah, tell them who to defer to. Yeah, Hoa. Hoa is fine. Yep. Do not refer it to your realtor. Because your realtor has the same limitations you have. Yeah. So don't include realtor it's, they're not happy about that. And they're right,

John Laforme: 14:41

right. And you know, and a little message out to directly to realtors is when there are condos, inspections, you know, be aware that these are things that we're constantly you know, struggling with, like getting to the main to let you know what size panel you have. Sure I'm still going Look at your panel inside the unit, as long as it's, you know, not Federal Pacific, I'm not going to take the cover off of that one. But most of the time I pull the covers off and looking inside the panels to make sure they're, you know, they appear to be, you know, intact and everything. But there's always limitations with condos, like I mentioned, getting to the main getting to the gas meter. A lot of people want to know, hey, where's my main water shut off on a condo? It's, well, it's that's a sink, that's your kitchen sink? Well, that's your shut off, right? There is little valves underneath the sink, there is no main shut off in the unit. And that's another thing that a lot of people get stung by like, oh, there's no watermain. While of course there is it's just in the building somewhere and it's not labeled for your unit, I'm quite sure. So you know, sometimes on subterranean parking, you can look on the in the parking garage and look up and you'll see a whole bunch of valves for the water supply, but then never labeled. So once again, we don't know which one is yours.

Greg Pyfrom: 15:55

Again, a lot of limits. So yeah, point out you don't know. And refer

John Laforme: 16:01

and refer. Got it. Got it. So Greg, you mentioned on the phone yesterday, you had a case with your first denial of coverage?

Greg Pyfrom: 16:13

Yes. For those of you that follow the insurance picture, be very, very careful of what you're doing. First, you want to know, who is the underlying carrier? Are they in house, meaning within the United States, are they territorially and that's my term, not somebody else's, meaning they're offshore. The key to this is to find out who is underwriting your loss. And remember, if you are an offshore company, and you buy their insurance policy, and if for whatever reason there is a disaster, and the company goes under, you have paid your money, you will not get it back, or at least your if you're lucky, you'll get something but that's not normally the case. And in fact, you then are on your own without insurance coverage. For all the inspections that you have done up to that point until you land no insurance, it is not. It's not the price you pay for the insurance. It's the value of the insurance when you need it. So keep that in mind when you're going out looking for bids. Ask the right questions, your broker will tell you because they don't want to be responsible for your loss when you sue them. So be upfront. Talk straight, compare exactly what you're doing with the insurance policy you need. And then go from there. Make a decision. Okay. All right. Yeah, insurance is important. Movie important thing, and I'm very important.

John Laforme: 17:51

And I'm gonna bring it up again, like I bring it up in just about every other episode of the podcast here is do not leave your house or office without your contract signed, in place completed. Before you go to that job, no exceptions. There should be no exceptions. Oh, I'm too busy. The past two weeks, I've cancelled two clients to potential clients. And I'm only seeing cancel, because I'm referring to a tentative two into two tentative inspection appointments. I make it very clear. In my email to my clients, this is a tentative inspection appointment. You need to follow the instructions in this email to confirm the appointment. And they just like yeah, I'll just do it later. In the meantime, I got other calls coming in people, hey, I need that spot. I'm like monitoring that person going. I don't have time for that. I get very busy just like you and everybody else. So when people tell me they're too busy, I'm like, oh, okay, I'm not. So anyway, it's so I had to cancel two tentative appointments, because people were too busy. And one of them actually put that in a text message to me that she was just too busy to get to it. I said, Okay. Well, then I'll be cancelling your appointment your tentative appointment right now. And I did. She wasn't very happy about that. And she kind of ignored that as well. My text that I'm canceling the appointment. So then what she does is she then reads the then she accepts the agreement. After I cancelled it as she still had it in our email and didn't make the payment. So I had to remind her again, this was already cancelled, because you only did half the half of the job. Have confirming I require contract and payment in full on every job. Otherwise I don't, I don't lock it down. And I won't show up without it. Because I don't like to. When you allow when you allow customers to skate on payment, don't be surprised if they call you at the last minute to cancel.

Greg Pyfrom: 20:24

Well, let's, let's take that one step further. Okay, I just got the first case. And I've had and I've been doing home inspection, defense for better than 30 years. And yes, I'm that old. Okay. Yes, I am. Since the 19, late 1980s 19, early 90s, I've been doing this litigation. And I've just gotten my first denial of coverage based on these facts. Very good inspector got very busy. And he had a psychologist who was going to send in a signed document. But because of an emergency in her profession, she didn't, she didn't get it in the day before payment was not an issue at that point. What occurred next was, he shows up to the home inspection, and so to she, but she didn't bring the signed copy. And he didn't have an extra copy. And she said, look, it's an hour for me to drive there. And back, we just do the inspection. I'll be at your office at 9am Tomorrow morning, which she showed up ended, and then dated it for the next day, of course, and signed it, which was what she should have done. The a claim came in nine months later, excuse me nine months later, and the insurance company, it denied it immediately based upon that 12 hour differential. Now, from a legal standpoint, and this is someone who has been paying insurance all along for a long period of time. This was a surprise. So I did legal research, I don't believe their position is supportable. But it would cost a lot of money. So I what he's done is just retained me, I will do the case. And then once it's finished, we will have a discussion with the insurance carrier on the denial. And keep in mind, what you need to do is to just follow a common procedure that you do every single day. Yep. There's no reason why that inspection couldn't have been done another day. Yes, you made a can accommodation. Yes, it was good for the client. Yes, you thought it was good for you and look at the result? The answer is don't have shortcuts. And modern technology can do all of this for you. If you just invest a couple dollars every day to do it.

John Laforme: 22:54

Yes. And let me explain that a little better. You want me to jump in here?

Greg Pyfrom: 22:57

Yes, I do. This is the point that you do better than I do. Alright, so

John Laforme: 23:01

what Greg said makes total sense, guys, you cannot change your policy. This is your business policy. Look, if you work for a multi inspector firm, well, then you're dealing with their policy, which means you probably don't have to worry about this stuff too much. I'm not sure. Because I've never worked for a multi inspector firm. So I'm not sure if their office handles everything like this all the paperwork and the payment, or they have the inspector deal with it, you get any input on that.

Greg Pyfrom: 23:33

The bigger firms have a whole series of individuals that go through all the steps and procedures. As a matter of fact, if I can interject now, in one of the case studies, which you'll hear later on, there is a procedure in place that says that in order to get an inspection date, you have to already signed their contract, and already approved the amount of the home inspection or in this case, a commercial inspection. So you don't even get a date until that's done right. And by the way, more and more groups and I say groups are going into this procedure. And the reason for it is the cancellations, the loss of jobs and you have these individuals that work for you to get these jobs. So you don't want to cancel and hurt them either. It helps you It helps me it helps everyone to have a standard procedure.

John Laforme: 24:27

Right. So back to what I was saying is policy. So if you are a one man band like myself, who handles the good and the bad in my business, you have to create a policy and you got to stick to it. You got to be disciplined. Yes, I know, oh, I don't want to hurt their feelings. I don't want to make it sound like I'm forcing them to sign it. Well, it's all on the wording. I mean, you don't have to make it sound like you're forcing them. You got to explain it in your email your initial email to your customer that contains for Well, let's assume you have a digital format setup, I do. And if you do not have a digital format for your contracts nowadays, wake up you are you are trapped in the 80s. And you need to get out of that, that little hole that you're in that little black hole, and poke your head through the black hole, and then look around and see what's going on in today's world, you guys have got to get up to date on your technology. And it's super important. And the beauty of having the right software is it makes every step manageable, especially if you're a one person company owner, like I am like I do everything, I don't have time to chase customers to sign an agreement. I give them 24 hours after I send it and if they don't respond to it, I'll by the way, I know when they open the email, because once again, my report writing software shows me that it tells me everything when they signed it when they opened the email when they signed it. When they made payment, all that just gets automatically brought to my attention as soon as it happens. So the importance of spending money, spending money on good software, right out right at the beginning of your journey as a home inspector is very beneficial. Even though you don't make it even though you're not making a lot of money yet. It's it's going to simplify your process. So I want to do a little

Greg Pyfrom: 26:35

bit to this. Let me jump in. We did some figures just before Yeah, just about these figures are outrageous. Okay, so costs more for hamburger than this. Right? Right.

John Laforme: 26:44

So basically, if you do, if you're just starting out, and maybe you're getting, you know, up to 10 inspections a month, and you were to pay for the top end software, you're looking at probably 80 bucks a month, maybe a little more. And you know, that's like $8 that's going to be like $8 per inspection. What can you buy with $8? Nowadays, I don't smoke, but I'm pretty sure cigarettes are right around there. Right? I wouldn't know pack of cigarettes. I don't know, loaf of bread? What? You know, what doesn't cost $8? Just, I mean,

Greg Pyfrom: 27:21

there's another point. Yeah. Remember, in the laws of the state of California, you as a home inspector, or as much a professional as a doctor, lawyer, dentist, nurse, etc. You have to meet certain standards, and it benefits you to do it professionally. It just makes you look much bigger than you are.

John Laforme: 27:43

Exactly. Perception. Yeah. It's really important. Yeah. So now if you're doing if you're paying 80 bucks a month for software, and you're doing 20 inspections month, that's that's $4 per inspection. $4. If you do 30 inspections a month, that's like 250 to 60

Greg Pyfrom: 28:03

You can even buy a gallon of gas for that and come on. It's It's

John Laforme: 28:07

It's ridiculous. So you guys, I know a lot of you don't want to spell it's gonna cost money. You know, you're running a business business,

Greg Pyfrom: 28:16

saving you money based on your deductible. Every time you have a loss, and they come in, they want you to pay your deductible, whether it's 1000 5000, think about a $5,000 loss that you did nothing wrong, but you had to pay the 5000 versus paying $80 a month. Are you kidding? Yeah.

John Laforme: 28:35

So it's, you got to put your ducks in a row. And I see this, I still hear it all the time. I'll see it on online groups and stuff people talking about, you know, should I get my contract signed before? I go to Yeah, what's the point of having something signed after you started? You gotta it's called setting expectations. It's just like your first phone call with your customer. You have to explain certain things to him. So they get a good understanding that you're not there to paint the house. I'm coming to inspect your house, I'm not painting your kitchen while I'm there. I'm not going to be giving you tips on you know, drapes and stuff like that. I'm not going to measure your drapes, I get phone calls like that people just have a really, really bad sense of direction when it comes to you know what the home inspection process is. And I don't know where they get that from. I don't know where they're getting this from. It's just a friend or maybe a relative that just given them bad information. But I want to go back to the report, the report writing software you use in today's world in 2022 and beyond. You should have automatic systems set up in that software automation, where as soon as your customer calls in gives you the name, email, phone number, property address, what inspections they want if you offer multiple inspections and so forth. It Once you send them that automatic that first email, everything else should be on auto. They should get reminders, you know about the inspection coming up. It's going to allow them to pay by credit card. If you're still taking checks. Well, that's that's a gamble. If you want to take checks, you haven't Good luck with it. Well, I guess you can keep doing it. But to me, it's a gamble, getting paid by cheque. Because if you have to chase somebody for a check, you're taking time out of work. And it's just a headache. Let me even open door. You're leaving too many open doors.

Greg Pyfrom: 30:33

Let me jump in here. Yeah, there are scams going on. Yeah, that we see all the time. Yep. where individuals are basically going to come in fix and flip. And you've seen all these fix and flips. And that's they get everything going all the way down the line, they start off with they send you a check the checks, no good. But you've already got the inspection report. There are a lot of people in the home inspection industry, as well as the commercial that say that not only do you do have to have it cashed before I give you the report, is that before the report goes out, there is a secondary check done to make sure that that money is already in your bank account. And if it is not in your bank account, they don't get the report. Yeah, exactly. So they hold the report. And you can call it ransom. You can call it good business, you can say the fact that you don't want to deal with lawyers. Okay, whatever rationalization you want. The bottom line of it is, it's just a good business practice. And one last point,

John Laforme: 31:30

policy.

Greg Pyfrom: 31:32

Do you believe that if you call a lawyer on the phone and say, the checks in the mail, but I have an appearance tomorrow morning in downtown Los Angeles on this case, that lawyer is going to go, you're out of your mind? And the answer is your justice professional as a lawyer. So come on,

John Laforme: 31:49

yeah, when another way of looking at it is you're reserving your time for that person, you're literally reserving a time in a day, like whether it's to five hours, whatever it is two to five hours, you're reserving that, and that person will not commit, if they're not willing to pay you for your time, I just find this very effective. And I've been doing this for at least the past four years of requiring payment along with contract. Otherwise, there's no inspection. A lot of people will do this, they'll pay me right away, and ignore the contracts

Greg Pyfrom: 32:27

will keep the money. That's what your lawyer will tell you keep the money and say when you sign the contract, I'll be happy to do it. But you've taken my time anyway.

John Laforme: 32:34

So when that happens, I send them and say, Hey, thank you for the payment. I really appreciate your payment, but you seem to have overlooked the inspection contracts. I can't do anything without those. So can you please take care of those. And some will really try not to sign it because they think that just going to get one up on you. And you show up. Now, man, I said, Ma'am, I'm going to have to refund your money, because I can't I'm not going to show up for your job. And they're like, they're like what? Yeah, I'm not showing up to your job without paper in place. That's it.

Greg Pyfrom: 33:06

And the reason for it is that is the person that is already set some forces in motion, that if this doesn't go, well, they know who's going to pay for it. Exactly. And these

John Laforme: 33:16

being set up, you got to be careful that there's some very shady people out there, and they will try to put you right in a bear trap.

Greg Pyfrom: 33:25

We had one not long ago that had to do with a lawyer with a very substantial practice. And he didn't want to sign the contract. And the bottom line, the home inspectors said no. And the the attorney actually had the gall to say if you don't show up, I'm going to sue you. And they said, we already have our lawyers, and we're already ready. So okay. He immediately then had a secretary. What happened was his secretary signed it for him. He didn't want his name on it.

John Laforme: 33:55

You know? Yeah, I've worked for lots of lawyers. I've done a lot. My a lot of my clients have been attorneys. A sign it no problem at all. No questions. Some of them say, hey, good, good contract. I'll get a comment once in a while. That's pretty good. I wrote it. You did, actually. So yeah, so everybody back to the report writing it's, it's, it's a great, great, great policy to have set in place that you have to stick to I know, it's about discipline. I know it's broken hearts. Oh, I don't want to upset them. You got to stop thinking that way. This is business. You're not doing this for your relative, you're doing it for someone you do not know, at all. And you want to make sure you cover it. You gotta cover your butt.

Greg Pyfrom: 34:39

I'm gonna go one step further. You're not just only one Yes, only one more step and that is you're not only protecting you and your family. You're protecting the realtor to the realtor can be brought in on a wrongful referral basis. So think about that.

John Laforme: 34:57

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, my insurance actually covers for the realtor as well on referrals. My insurance covers that. Well, you

Greg Pyfrom: 35:06

don't know that yet. Well, you just think that well, it says it in writing. So, and the writing? Yes, that's, that's another question. All right, well, I'll answer it. If you know the answer. The answer is wait and see if they say yes. They say yes, then you know, you have it. If they don't say anything, or say no, you may want to think that out again,

John Laforme: 35:29

or they're gonna tell me that was a typo that I'm reading off their their paperwork?

Greg Pyfrom: 35:33

No, they're gonna say, didn't you see the amendment that came in later? I didn't get that I was drawing it.

John Laforme: 35:41

Anyway, anyway. So like I said, you cannot afford not to have good software, just like you cannot afford not to have insurance. I'm gonna keep saying this every podcast if I have to guys until you start listening, until I stopped seeing these ridiculous comments on these forums, and these Facebook groups or whatever, I see it on Instagram or whatever. You guys have got to wake up. This is just simple business right here, cover you. Cover yourself, cover your family, cover your business. And just understand you are going to ruffle a couple of feathers along the way. There's no way you're going to please everybody. But away,

Greg Pyfrom: 36:21

there's something better. Wait till they get the first lawsuit. They're going to be the one screaming but why do I need all this? That's the reason. That's the reason. It's all protection. So you don't drive a car without insurance.

John Laforme: 36:35

It's gonna say that, Greg, I was just gonna say that. Yep. Anyway, you had another? Hang on. You had another case. You want to talk about commercial one? Yeah, the commercial one. Yeah. You want to go into that?

Greg Pyfrom: 36:49

Yes. For those of you that do various types of inspections, whether it's commercial or not, right. We have a case going on right now that I'm going to tell you factually, I've handled this myself. And I will tell you, every fact I'm giving you is true. There is a commercial inspection in Burbank. I will tell you one step further that that commercial inspection was for a property that was about over 2500 3500 square feet built more than 50 years ago to their building and safety guidelines. Sure. And I will tell you that I have never seen a report. That's so thrashed and I use that term. Rarely.

John Laforme: 37:36

Do you mean is it thrashed the property because it was so bad?

Greg Pyfrom: 37:39

I'll use the word torture, torture, torture is a cleaner word. Okay, torched it to such an extent that they didn't think anyone would buy this property. And I'm now going eight years later, they're served with a summons and complaint. And of course, at four years, the home inspector is allowed to completely remove any type of evidence as to that inspection. And they're allowed to do that under Business and Professions Code 97199.

John Laforme: 38:13

So when you so what you mean is, after four years, as inspectors have the right to just delete all that information

Greg Pyfrom: 38:19

absolute if if you have not received any information whatsoever to lead you to believe that there is any problem whatsoever. They didn't even know that the commercial building had closed escrow. The the people who bought it got advice from their realtors who were very good realtors to go ahead and get estimates and they got estimates for a complete roof repainting a water intrusion massively throughout the property mold present leaks inside the property HVAC system that was gone. Ay, ay ay termite inspection problem with termites around the window water intrusion coming in from cars going by and spraying water on the front of the building. And it goes on and on and on. And they decided to get a painter, a person licensed as a painter, not a construction painter, a licensed painter, to redo the roof, read to that water intrusion, redo the plumbing. They did bring in an electrician, but they did all of that closed escrow. And five years after the home inspection. They have a water intrusion problem for the first time and you now have a commercial inspector who is being sued and his two years into litigation.

John Laforme: 39:45

So they hit let me get that straight. They had a painter do the roof work.

Greg Pyfrom: 39:48

They had the painter do the inside outside. As a matter of fact, they took off all the stucco on the outside. There were cracks all the way through. They use the last American paint they went through all Oh Jiminy all the permutations and combinations possible to do this, it took them five months to get the place in a reasonable condition to, to have for their business.

John Laforme: 40:12

I have a question for you regarding. So go back going back after the inspector completed his inspection, and he, and he sent out he published the report for the client that Do you know, have you been told if the client or the realtors involved actually called him with any questions after

Greg Pyfrom: 40:32

there were no questions asked. They would. That's why I say again, they didn't even think the escrow closed. Why would anybody buy that for such a large number? And I'm telling you, it was a large number,

John Laforme: 40:45

right? The reason why I asked you that question is because I think that there has some weight to it. When when you do all that work, and you write that report, which probably took you hours to do, and then you send all that detail to a customer. And you don't even get a phone call go I can I just want to run, you know, talk about the report a little bit any quick, I have a few. I have a few questions for you. Especially when it's in that kind of deferred maintenance condition, you would expect a phone call, Hey, you know, what about this, this and this and it like a little more fine tuning? That is going to have questions for you. And I think when people don't call you when it's that bad, like they just don't give a shit. Well,

Greg Pyfrom: 41:29

yes, this was an unusual situation. And I mean, there were a uniqueness to the the key to all of this is he didn't even know the fact that they had closed escrow. He presumed and rightly so. I've been doing this long enough to know a torched report, and I don't get many of them. This was awful. I thought that they had sent me the wrong report. And I called them back and said, Are you sure that you gave me the right report? I haven't really done many of those in 3040 years.

John Laforme: 42:06

Yeah, well, I'll be honest with you, I don't know most of the time when when people close escrow, so I'm not sure how he would feel that he he was surprised about that. Because I don't know people don't close escrow. They don't know how I find out they didn't close Escrow is when they call me to do another house for him.

Greg Pyfrom: 42:23

What return businesses good? Yeah.

John Laforme: 42:27

I get like sometimes I get three, do three houses for one customer and like within 30 days, because the what maybe the there was too many problems with the house on the first inspection. Second time the buyer wouldn't give me any credits or whatever. And then

Greg Pyfrom: 42:43

the last housing market you saw them bought sight unseen. I know. Crazy.

John Laforme: 42:49

Yeah. I think we're still there. I don't think we're quite. We're out of that. Thanks.

Greg Pyfrom: 42:52

Oh, yes. Yes. The prices are coming down. Didn't you see Varney this morning? I mean,

John Laforme: 42:57

by No, I, I don't think they're coming down. I

Greg Pyfrom: 42:59

think they're sitting on the market longer. Now. They're coming down. Yeah, right. Especially the beat like$10 Oh, no, no, no, the big expensive houses are dropping considerably. It's not a good investment anymore. To the common person you're looking at maybe 5% 10%. I mean, we have we have a house on our block in 1000 oaks that was completely redone built in 1975. This is this is old, old house that had never been upgraded. And it was a four bedroom, two story. I mean, it was in a good location, but by the Rams training camp as a matter of fact. And you would think that thing would have gone somebody came in gave them top dollar and I mean, top dollar for all this work that had to be that was just under a million bucks. They bought it for and they thought they were going to do this quick throw 100,000 in it make 250,000 in profit, and it would be the first person that grabbed it. It's still on the market today. And he's he's selling it for less money than he bought it for eating the 100,000. Yes, ouch. Yeah. Ouch.

John Laforme: 44:04

That hurts. And this is a good time to buy right now or buy wait a little longer. Do you think?

Greg Pyfrom: 44:09

Um, well, it depends on the interest rate. Everything is gearing on the interest rate. And you know that when you could get 2% Honestly, what's your opinion on the high interest rates? Are you paying for this opinion? Or? I'm joking, I'm joking. Come on Just a joke. Just what's your I think the housing market is going to continue because of supply and demand. You have no other place to really get the benefits. Rents now are over $2,000 for a one bedroom, a large one bed? I know. So the answer is they don't have a choice. The question is, are we going to get into a second generation loan?

John Laforme: 44:43

That wasn't my question? Yes. The answer is yes. My question was, What's your opinion on a higher interest rate and a lower housing market price?

Greg Pyfrom: 44:52

I think it's here. And I think that how I think that eventually what is going to come when the Fed gets out act in order is that the interest rates will come down, because it only makes common sense. You have effect, I'll give you a perfect example. You're having now people with large lots, put in a grandma's flat, and they're renting it out. The government is actually giving you a tax break if you do that. So what are they telling you? There's not enough houses, there's not enough residential property available. So therefore what they're doing, and they're doing this around San Diego State like crazy. So obviously, there's a big need. Are you

John Laforme: 45:35

are you? Are you getting ready to run for Congress or something? Because you get really good at get walking around my questions.

Greg Pyfrom: 45:40

Okay. Let me see if I can run past it. Okay. The answer is, I think the housing market is here to stay. It's going to continue, it doesn't make any difference. All you have to do it look at look at the floods back east in the east, and the problems are having in Texas with the immigration and all the other stuff. The answer is yes. Yes. What? Yes, it's going to be a good business to be in. I'm not buying a home inspection business, because I probably would be a conflict of interest. But I gotta tell you about it.

John Laforme: 46:11

My point was, I just don't think I'm asking the question correctly. So let me let me put some more I'm

Greg Pyfrom: 46:17

trying to divert the put a brighter light on that. Okay.

John Laforme: 46:21

So, low interest rate, you're paying at the really low, the prices of the homes were higher? Yes. My right. Yes. Okay. Now the interest rates have gone up. Price of the homes, you're now saying is coming down, it is coming? Okay. So it's my understanding, when you have a mortgage, your interest is a write off? It is. Okay. So my point is, I'm not scared of a high interest rate, if the price of the home has come down significantly, doesn't bother me, because you can buy it with the high interest rate at the lower price. And then when interest rates come down, you just refinance.

Greg Pyfrom: 47:03

Again, that is a point that what you're talking about is what occurred at the end of 2006 through 2009. And all you're looking at is the turn, everyone's watching the rate watching the curve. And when those two intersect, you're going to have another boom. Yeah. That was that a financial analysis that you wanted to hear? Or did I answer that? Let's see. The answer is yes.

John Laforme: 47:26

I think you should run for congress or something. Because you get and you start act like a politician over there. You just running around questions. It's

Greg Pyfrom: 47:35

it's the best place to put your money in long term. Now. I know. I agree. happen.

John Laforme: 47:38

Yeah. So yeah. Don't let the high interest rate scare you can always get around that later.

Greg Pyfrom: 47:44

Let me put it to you this way. I have a house in San Diego that I bought when my daughter went to law school. Now she's a lawyer. I did really well in that five years ago, really well. I just bought a townhome in Westlake Village for about $100,000 under market buy, cuz I'm going to hold it for three years. The answer is, you have no place else to put your money, you're not going to put it in the stock market right now. So therefore, you have to you have to put it someplace, and the interest you're getting on your money is absolutely peanuts. So therefore you have to put it in real estate is the best long term investment ever.

John Laforme: 48:22

Even CD rates are so low that not even worth buying right now.

Greg Pyfrom: 48:26

Again, decade plus, buying CD is like wasting your money. For example, I have a lot of money. And for second trust deeds that I'm getting between nine and a half and 10%. As soon as that comes down all that money I've gotten it's going into buying another property. Sure. And the answer is, yes, I'm old. Okay. But I plan to be around forever. And besides, my kids and wife say, Bring home the money. Yeah, I'm doing it.

John Laforme: 48:59

Greg. Just for the record. You don't look any a day older than 21. Oh, yes.

Greg Pyfrom: 49:03

Right. Right. It's 75. You're telling me that? Are you running for Congress? This

John Laforme: 49:10

anyway? Hell, no, man. Nobody would want to vote for me. Anyway. I didn't know we're doing finances today. But hey, that was a good little touch on finances. But that's good. That's good to help everybody get a little knowledge out of that. Don't be afraid to high interest rates. People worry about that too much. You cannot that's always gonna change. Keep your credit score up. You can always refinance to keep yourself in a good position. And you can get around that eventually

Greg Pyfrom: 49:37

when you can get nine and a half to 10% on 50% equity in San Diego. Why do anything until the prices come down? It's gravy and all these people that I'm telling you that I'm getting these from? They're all doing the grandma flat in the back and they can get $2,000 on eight is the yes I'm telling you It's a gravy train right now,

John Laforme: 50:02

I want to talk about AD use. No, I

Greg Pyfrom: 50:04

don't. Okay. I don't want to give away my secrets.

John Laforme: 50:08

Now I was, I'm actually going to be doing an episode on ad use shortly. Because there's a lot of confusion there. With people buying these properties, they don't know what they are. So we're gonna get into that in a different different podcast. So anything else here on your little list? Alright, let me just did you did you finish your story about the trashed commercial building? Oh, yes, tract it.

Greg Pyfrom: 50:34

Basically we have taken the woman's deposition that bought it. She really doesn't know anything. She really has no experience. She got some questionable advice. It could have been good. It could have been bad. But all of the events that caused the water intrusion certainly wasn't based upon rain, because we haven't had any Ray. The answer had to do with what is called a zero lot line property, which they have in most businesses. And they had an adjoining property that caused the water intrusion. And they're now blaming the commercial inspection that took place five years before the other residential property created the problem. And they're being sued. So having insurance, it is not inexpensive. But I gotta tell you the amount of money that's going in to prove that this commercial inspector did a great job and shouldn't have been involved is another story. And once it's finished, I will be hired for the purposes of collecting money back. And as you know, for home inspector, you're

John Laforme: 51:44

pretty good at that.

Greg Pyfrom: 51:45

I have already collected in excess of $1.3 million, which is then been divided between, obviously my firm for doing it. We have we have obviously the insurance company involved. Yeah. And the home inspector actually made money on being sued. Yep.

John Laforme: 52:04

Now that's a cool business. I wouldn't mind being in

Greg Pyfrom: 52:07

being a lawyer is not a cool bid. No, no, I

John Laforme: 52:10

didn't say lawyer. I said collecting the money that from after being served?

Greg Pyfrom: 52:15

Well, it's it's pretty lucrative, as I will say, again, yeah. It used to be a joke, suing a home inspector, because you are guaranteed between 10 $15,000. So you would name them even if they didn't even do the inspection? The answer is, nowadays, there is a price to pay for it. And the courts are upholding the remember the one case and I'll tell you it quickly is the one that claimed there was cancer because there was mold in the house. And we covered we covered for them, we collected for them a little over $300,000. And the attorney for the plaintiff was the one who paid $300,000.

John Laforme: 53:01

Wow. Interesting. You know, I wanted to make a comment here about the home inspector Ari magazine. I just recently got their latest digital version of it. And they're talking about red flags of roofing. So I just wanted to ask you, do you get a lot of claims? Or do you have to defend any home inspectors regarding roof leaks and stuff like that?

Greg Pyfrom: 53:35

Yes, but not recently, because it hasn't rained. But there are other problems relating to roofs, for example, we just got a case in which a event was not put through the roof. It remained inside the attic and wasn't called out.

John Laforme: 53:52

You would have that. But by the way, but that wouldn't cause a roof leak.

Greg Pyfrom: 53:55

No, it wouldn't. But it would certainly create a problem because it didn't go into the roof.

John Laforme: 54:00

What kind of exhaust pipe was it?

Greg Pyfrom: 54:02

It was just a direct vent, they went directly up from we believe, because remember, we haven't gotten into the house yet. Okay. But we believe that this was a old vent. And what they did was when they redid the roof as part of the remodel, they just kept it inside rather than take it out. And there is another vent that goes up to the roof up through the roof, I should say. And so all of this being sued on event that isn't connected anything it just wasn't removed.

John Laforme: 54:34

Yes. Getting soon because somebody left an abandoned event. And

Greg Pyfrom: 54:38

again, we haven't gotten into the house to see it. But we we there was a complete remodel. And the remodeling took place included the kitchen, and there were events that were involved in the kitchen. And we know Building and Safety came out inspect the house and gave it a clean bill of health and certificate of occupancy. Therefore, how could it be a functional event? And let's just say assume it was a functional event. Building and Safety just gave a good housekeeping seal of approval, saying there's nothing wrong with it.

John Laforme: 55:07

But did it cause any kind of health hazard or something?

Greg Pyfrom: 55:10

We don't know. We just got the case. We haven't been into the

John Laforme: 55:14

I want to know more about this. Well, that sounds really stupid. This

Greg Pyfrom: 55:17

is by an attorney. And I'll go one step further. This one is amazing to you, because she lives in San Diego, but more to the east. They have a school down the street, and she's now claiming the home inspector was responsible to review the traffic for the school. Oh, no, no, no, that's that's not the worst one. The worst one is, is that five years beforehand, or four years beforehand, there was a permit taken out for the purpose and purposes of harvesting sand. So therefore, because the permit was tentatively approved, but didn't go into operation at the time of this, the home inspector should have gone ahead and surveyed all of these things, because they are going to be somewhere between 25 and 50 of these trucks going down these roads every single day during the weekday, between According to the complaint between 8:30am

and 5: 56:14

30am. And he's responsible for that also

John Laforme: 56:18

sounds like buyer's remorse to me, someone didn't do their due diligence. And now they're trying to blame everybody for their lack of that law. Right?

Greg Pyfrom: 56:27

This this is, this would be funny if it wasn't real. But that's why you have to have the insurance coverage. And there's one other thing I did want to cover very quickly. That is binding arbitration. I'm gonna do it very quickly.

John Laforme: 56:41

I know hang on. Oh, was that later? Okay. So yeah, I want to I want to stay on this. Vent this mystery vent. So let's discuss that a little bit. So let's talk about what that vent could possibly be. What year was the building?

Greg Pyfrom: 56:56

That's what look, again, I'm being redundant in this residential. It's residential. I think it's at least 30 years old. I've seen the picture.

John Laforme: 57:05

Okay. So it could be one of many vents, it could be a an abandoned plumbing vent. Yep. Which, to which the worst case scenario would be, if it was still connected to the plumbing drain system, you'd get some bad odors in the house. Wow, that's hard to fix. You just can tap it through the roof. That's pretty simple fix. So if it wasn't a plumbing vent, then it could possibly be a furnace exhaust vent. Now, if that's still connected somehow to the new vent, well, and it's still able to allow carbon monoxide or gases to leak into the attic that could get into home. That's a health hazard. I get that I can understand them screaming about that. But other than that, it would be a kitchen range exhaust a bathroom exhaust

Greg Pyfrom: 57:54

an old exhaust.

John Laforme: 57:57

Well, that's I'm saying I'm just I'm just like, if it I'm just giving you like the worst case scenarios of what it could be. Water Heater exhaust furnace exhaust, bathroom vent, that's not going to cause any problems, except for me. Maybe in California, it's very rare that we're going to see any kind of a mold issue from an exhaust fan blowing into the attic. That's very rare. But yeah, I don't see a major harm to anybody unless it's connected to a water heater or furnace.

Greg Pyfrom: 58:29

I haven't gotten to the big one yet. Oh, what's the big one? All doing the escrow. There were multiple bidders in and out. Not a problem. But when they bought the house because this solar on the roof. They went to bed at night. And they would hear this pinging. So ping, ping, like a drip, no, ping a sound. And I'll tell you that it was not heard by anyone during the total escrow. They were in the house seven times doing their measurements, inspections, all the other stuff. No one else heard it. They only heard it at night. So what they have concluded or they conceived to be is the fact that the inside because of the heat in that area, and the solar on the outside and the cooling at night, as the solar comes down. They're thinking that that is the pinging sound of the condensation between the the exterior solar panels getting hot and cooling. That's what they think it is. That was the number one thing and again, I forgot one other point. And that is they're claiming that because some of the structural elements of the roof have cracks in them that it's non structural, which is ridiculous. You have the drawing of every single beam that's within that house that takes place over long periods of time. And that's built into the calculations used by building and safety in order to build the property. This is ridiculous. But this is what you can get. It's all packed in one

John Laforme: 1:00:17

just takes that one special client.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:00:20

Special. I think that's the right term special. No, not unique, unique, unique. And of course, it is a lawyer.

John Laforme: 1:00:35

I wouldn't you know it, you can't make that up. All right. You wanted to go into Yeah,

Greg Pyfrom: 1:00:39

I do. I want to say one more thing about this, this report, or this? Magazine magazine. I have to tell you, I've I was introduced to it recently, I've read a lot of back issues. This guy that writes this, and all the work that he has done to bring the home inspection industry up to the 21st century 22nd, maybe, is just doing a great job. And they give they give these out. 25,000 a month. Yep. These guys are just really cutting edge. They're out of San Diego. And I've got to tell you, I met with some of them last month. These are really really sharp people.

John Laforme: 1:01:20

Yeah, so this is a magazine for home inspectors. It talks about they're also an insurance comp insurance.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:01:26

They have an insurance arm to it. Oh, that's correct.

John Laforme: 1:01:29

Okay. So he has to have an insurance arm too. I get these magazines in the mail, I do find useful. And I do get the digital version as well. So yeah, if you're in a home inspector, you might want to look into this and just get subscribe and get those magazines sent up.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:01:43

Not only that, but it gives you all the cutting edge having all over the country. One of the things that they're doing right now is leading up to my next subject, which is how do we protect ourselves in the contract with a binding arbitration? Remember, California uses the California arbitration rule, which is very, very liberal. What you have also is a national construction, binding arbitration service out of New Mexico. And the bottom line of it is, is that they use the national arbitration rules. And the National arbitration rules say, if you have a contract, you must give a adjudication based upon the terms and conditions of your contract, right, not a liberal interpretation, which California courts and California arbitrators use. So when you go to one of the alphabet soup, places like ADR, a jambs, and all the rest of them. They use the California arbitration rules they use nationally for home inspectors, the the federal rules, and the difference is, for a home inspector that I'm defending, I want them to use the construction dispute resolution, services, services, rules. And what they do is you don't pick the arbitrator they do. The arbitration is done very, very quickly. I mean, you're in and out of this in eight months, if everybody is delaying, they don't allow delays, you get it on the plate off the place and gone. And as long as your contract is what it should be, you're sitting in a great place, for instance, California, if you have a liquidated damage clause, and let's say it's three times the cost of the inspection, it can be thrown out, and there's nothing you can do about it. According to construction defect resolution, their national policy is no, that is exactly the amount it is right. So if they want a brand new roof that cost 25,000 bucks, they get three times the amount of the inspection. And with that your attorney can offer them a statutory offer of compromise for 3000. I'm assuming three times the amount of the inspection. And if they don't take it, they must pay your attorney fees. So we always have an attorney fees clause a good one, we always have construction defect resolution services. And you have that not only in the paragraph, but just before they sign just above their signature says we agree that this matter will be heard in binding arbitration through construction defect resolution services, and that way they can't get out of it. And that's what I'm recommending, it's going to bring down the cost of your insurance dramatically. Right. Anyway,

John Laforme: 1:04:50

so back to these working our E magazine I want to contact the gentleman's name is editor, Isaac Peck. Yes. I'm going to contact him as If you'd like to be a guest on the show,

Greg Pyfrom: 1:05:02

he would be great. He's for a young man. And I'll say it again. If the young people of our country were made up of his intelligence, his motivation, and his business savvy, were in really good shape.

John Laforme: 1:05:17

Sweet. Yep. So, yeah, okay, I was gonna get into some millennial talking about I'm not going to do that. Okay. If this guy's this guy's the next generation, that's great. I'm all for it. Let's see. Yeah. All right. I was in San Diego.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:05:37

Yeah, one of the points about it is he's really interested in the business of home inspection to make it viable. So the consumer can get it at a reasonable cost. And also, is make sure that the home inspector is not thrown under the bus simply because he has an insurance policy, which is normally what occurs. Yes. Yes. The key to it is if we don't protect our industry, nobody else is going to do it. Certainly not the state of California.

John Laforme: 1:06:08

Hey, what about you? and I both invite Isaac on and the three of us do the show together?

Greg Pyfrom: 1:06:14

It'd be fine with me.

John Laforme: 1:06:15

Yeah, that'd be cool. bright guy. That'd be good. All right, Craig, anything else you want to go over? You want to call it a day.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:06:22

I've already called it a day this morning. But But I will call it a night yet. Just the one thing that I would like to see the home inspectors do is why not have podcasts like this on a topic they want to hear available so that they can get units for continuing education by having a podcast like this

John Laforme: 1:06:45

continuing education credits.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:06:47

And the key to this is you can learn what you need to learn, right. But what you need to learn is what you don't know. And if you had access, for example, quick story, you go to a home inspection and you see something that you've never really seen before, something unusual. You can come back that day, you're registered in the podcast, you find the podcast that covers that issue. And you get an education or a re education on the very same thing you're now going to write this report on, it's right there for you to get credits, right. And you have to have the continuing credits anyway, let's and let's take it one step further, let's assume that you are part of an association, a local chapter, you can have this demonstration going on at your chapter on a certain time, and you have it right before you. And you can have for example, the person that did the podcast on call because that's all part of the continuing education. Right? The key to this is getting a program that makes sense. That's good for everybody. Good for the home inspector, good for the client, good for the realtor, have a program that benefits everyone. Right? That's how this system is going to work. If one segment of it breaks down, nothing breaks.

John Laforme: 1:08:09

Well, let me do a little plug here for my YouTube channel because I think it's good time to do that because I do have a lot of videos that are helpful for home inspectors. You know, if you're a real seasoned home inspector, you probably know most of this stuff. But if you're you know you're starting out or maybe I've been doing it a few years. Trust me none of us know everything there's always something new to find on a house i i still walk into places and go What the hell's that? Never seen that now everybody looks at me John. What is that? Mike? I have no idea. I have no problem telling people if I don't know something. That's it. If I don't know I don't know. I'm not gonna sit there and go Well, I'm the home inspector and I supposed to know all this stuff. Well, yeah, but to a point you know, there's going to be a component and a house I just saw components stick out of a wall the other day in a condom like what the hell is that? It's not a doorbell not doesn't look like a doorbell. So I just put could not identify, you know, request disclosure from seller. I had no idea what it is. So anyway, my YouTube channel is home inspection authority. That's simple. Check it out, like and subscribe, please. And Greg's on there. By the way. He's a YouTube star on my YouTube channel. He's one of the many stars a lot of people have responded to your last episode, I broke it up into six parts. So you got six different videos on there and I got a lot of good feedback on that. So I

Greg Pyfrom: 1:09:36

have six different credits. I got that six credits, right

John Laforme: 1:09:40

you're half a cent a year will be mailed to you shortly.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:09:46

Your residuals let me ask you this tax free.

John Laforme: 1:09:50

That's half a cent. I'm pretty sure half a cent is worth less than an actual Penny. That's not even worth a cent right?

Greg Pyfrom: 1:09:57

Yep, I do. I have to put it down on my taxes. That's what I want. No, I don't think so. With the 80,000 more tax agents now being put to yet employed, yeah, this is going to be life is what is it? It's good to live in interesting times. I'm not so sure about that. But it's a great expression. Sure. Do you have any other questions for me? Let me just look over this note very, very quickly.

John Laforme: 1:10:22

I do I do.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:10:23

I you know, I'm sorry, I

John Laforme: 1:10:25

do have something else to talk about. Alright. Go ahead. Do it now. Okay, earlier, we started off the show with, you know, Home Inspection versus condo report writing, and those, those bullet points there. So as a lawyer, for home inspectors, do you see a problem with a home inspection service, offering multiple inspections, such as home inspection, which would be general home inspection, visual mold inspection, indoor air quality testing, sewer camera inspections, swimming pool inspections? Do you have any type of a pause or hesitation for that one person doing every one of those services on the same house,

Greg Pyfrom: 1:11:16

I have no problems with it, except for the last one swimming pools with the new legislative mandate, and there's going to be another one coming. At least they're talking about it, I would, I would evolve from anything to do with swimming pools other than what is mandated. And I would, I would strongly suggest anytime there's a swimming pool, no matter how good it looks, that they have a specialist in swimming pools coming out because of the safety factor. And it's the Get Out of Jail Free card as it relates to the rest of them. I think that when you talk about the visual mold versus actual sampling, those two are two different things. But if it's just a visual, remember, you can only as a home inspector, look at what's there. You can't move things underneath a ray. A sink, right? So

John Laforme: 1:12:09

that's my point. So if I'm hired as the general home inspector, and they also want me to do an inspection for mold, that would be two separate contracts.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:12:17

Everything has to be a separate contract, but you don't see any problem they're doing that. If you have the background education experience to do swimming pools to that extent, the answer is no, not at all. But you make sure your insurance company knows Yeah, that you do all of these. The No, there's no problem at all. But again, the more complicated you make it, the more permutations and combinations develop, but everything

John Laforme: 1:12:47

would be separate. So right home inspection has its own report and fee and contract mold has its own report, contract and fee. Everything is separate now just happens to be done all at the same day.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:12:59

Okay, as it relates to the collection of mold. Are you doing collection to or just visual? If there's something to collect? I could, okay, then you need to make sure that you have an indemnification agreement with the the mold sample that is the actual test facility that does it. And again, you say in your contract, you do not evaluate whether it's collect a sample, right? You just collect it and take it in, and then you report or they report to the client what it is, right. There is Is there anything else as it relates? Oh, by the way, don't forget the tree rules. The new rules that are coming out as it relates to trees, if you're in a area, like for example, Sacramento that has a tree heritage area, you have 100 year olds sycamore trees, and I told you once about the case we had up there that the tree limb with not only off the property across the street, but actually went over the the roof of the house across the street. Oh yeah, I'm serious. And and they and the home inspector in Sacramento was very smart. Because this was a raised foundation and said, Look, you've got to take f get a foundation expert out here to make sure that everything's but I'm I went underneath there and I see tree roots, but you got to you got to have an expert out there and they didn't. Yeah, they started off at $275,000. And they walked for nothing.

John Laforme: 1:14:26

I've actually seen tree roots under houses and I've reported so

Greg Pyfrom: 1:14:30

the one other thing I'd like to cover is whenever you have a arbitration, or an arbitrator or even a mediator, you must require that that mediator arbitrator has background education and experience in the home inspection industry. Because otherwise, all you're doing is educating a person that knows nothing to convince them. You don't go into any mediation or binding arbiter raishin or any type of hearing, in which that's not done, and there's an easy way to tell, you take their resume. And if they don't list, the home inspection Association, if they don't list Korea standards of practice, if they don't mention the home inspection industry as a specialty, you immediately eliminate them. And in my contract, it says that if in fact, they do not have the background education experience in the home inspection industry, they are eliminated from even being recommended. And the reason for it is why do I want to educate somebody on something they don't know. And I will give you one last portion of this. Just as an example, I tried a bunch of arbitrations with a judge who didn't know anything about the home inspection industry. But yet we convinced him and all these different cases, what the rules were, and they follow them. years later, he becomes a mediator in the case that I'm on and a mediation is simply everybody goes and tries to do a kumbaya and make a deal. Kumbaya. Yeah, right. So what occurred was, is that the plaintiff gets up and tells her story with her lawyer and stuff, and I'm just sitting there, right. And then before I could say a word, this judge said, No, Greg, I want you to wait for a second. I have some questions. His first nine questions were the same questions I had. You told me that last time, right. Yeah. And the bottom line is, is that before any number came up, he asked me to leave. He never let me ask a question. And we settled it for waiver of costs. So the point of it is know the person who's going to be judging what you do. So and they're very expensive mediators and other for a day, it's 12,000. So, again, there's there's other services that will do it. So with that in mind, I don't have anything else on my list. We've covered the signed contract, which is really what

John Laforme: 1:17:06

Yeah, yeah. So thanks, again for coming. Appreciate it. Like I said, Let's reach out to so that email to Isaac with his email was right on there. So let's see if he's interested in coming on the show. I've got to tell you. All right, Isaac, if you're out there, I'll hit you up to the email soon and hope you can join us for a little powwow or Kumbaya.

Greg Pyfrom: 1:17:29

The point is, is that let's let's get into his concept of how he sees the industry going. Sure. And I think that would be really important to all of them. That's,

John Laforme: 1:17:39

yeah, let's do it. Okay. All right. Thanks, Greg. All right. How do I enjoy the rest of your day?

Greg Pyfrom: 1:17:45

Yes, I will. I guess the question is, is that how do I turn off or do I just take it I just take take them off, okay. And people wonder why I was looking at the camera and the answer is I didn't get instructions.