Attention Home Buyers! Lets Set Some Realistic Expectations With Your Home Inspector.

Attention Home Buyers! Lets Set Some Realistic Expectations With Your Home Inspector. Yes this means you, It is very important you understand what to expect during your home inspection. To many times home buyers have unrealistic expectations during there home inspections because they did not read the inspection agreement and or were given bad information from there realtor or family member.

Communication is key between you and your inspectors! Not all systems in a home are covered by the general inspector so ask your inspector questions before the inspection day arrives. Let your inspector know if the home has a pool, ADU, fireplace, fire sprinklers etc.

John Laforme
CREIA Certified Inspector #0155263
Home Inspection Authority

800-950-1814

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXzxEH5J8y5EW1lZ3LtDB0A

Transcript

John Laforme: 0:00

Buying a home? Don't panic. Just listen to the rest of this podcast welcome to Home Inspection authority podcast with me, John laforme. Are you a homebuyer, a realtor, or maybe a home inspector? If you are, then this podcast is definitely for you. So let's get right into some straight talk about home inspections. Welcome back to the podcast everybody. Episode Seven. Today we're going to talk about setting expectations for the homebuyer when they show up for their home inspection, and what they should expect. So I want to start off right away with what paragraph nine B of the California Association of Realtors, California Residential Purchase Agreement says, seller shall make the property available for all buyer investigations. Seller shall have water, gas, electricity in all operable pilot lights on for buyers investigations and through the date. Possession is made available to buyer. That's pretty straightforward and pretty clear. So the purpose of that statement is to make sure you know you can test and inspect all the systems that your home inspectors there to inspect. And quite often, I myself and I'm sure a whole lot of other home inspectors show up and the gas is turned off. Sometimes the water's turned off. And guess what, we're not there to turn on your gas, we are not there to turn on the water. I'm personally will not touch any of those valves. for liability reasons. If the gas is off to a house, you got to think about that. And you know, use caution when you thinking about that. Because let's say for example, there's a gas leak in the house that somebody forgot to mention. And then somebody comes up and turns the gas on. And now all of a sudden we have active gas leak in the house, that's dangerous. Now you don't want that to happen. So that is why home inspectors will not turn on your gas, even if it's not locked, they're not going to do it. Same thing with the water. Why is the water turned off at a house that that makes no sense to me, unless somebody knows there's a leak there. Maybe there was an active leak, maybe someone noticed the toilets kept running, making a lot of noise. So I'll let's just turn off the water. So yeah, that's a problem. And that, and that limits what your inspector has been hired for. So it's not something I like to tell a buyer, my client, oh, by the way, I'm here for your home inspection. But I already noticed that the water's turned off, the gas is turned off, let's help the electricity still on. So I don't like tell him anybody that I really get bothered by that I've you know, I can get a little upset about that sometimes. Because I just think it's really, really bad business. For the selling side not to have that home ready for you as the buyer. If I was the buyer on a house, and I showed up with inspectors that I paid money for, and they couldn't do it, they would pay to do because of neglect on the seller side. I would I would have walked away from that escrow. Absolutely. Because that is just bad business. And if they're if that's how they deal with stuff, by leaving you hanging like that. I wouldn't even want to do the rest of the transaction. That's just me. But And here's another caveat to that, which is now that I've mentioned, oh the gas is off or the waters off or the electricity is off. Now guess what? The you or your your realtor is going to start making phone calls. And then the person on the other end of the phone who's not at the job not at the inspection site is going to swear up and down that all the utilities are on while we're standing there with nothing on and this happens quite often. I find it quite comical. What do you mean the gas is off? Well, just tell your inspector to turn it on. No, that's not going to happen. Maybe you can call a gas company and maybe they'll come right out. I doubt it but you could try. But anyways, that's what happens if the sellers have not prepared the house for you. And that's a real negative when you're showing up, and I see a lot of disappointed faces, and unhappy clients, and I don't enjoy being around that, so I don't like it any more than the buyers do. So with that being said, that's the, that's what you should expect is to have all of the utilities on. Now, to play it safe, I would definitely. But while before your inspection happens with how if you book it two days before, maybe a week before, always have your realtor confirm with the sellers that everything is on, it's very important to make sure everything is on. And sometimes you just can't take their word for it, maybe your realtor needs to actually show up at the house before the inspection day. And just go through and just turn everything on and make sure everything's ready to go. Sometimes you got to do a little more legwork to get to get things done the proper way. So that's the best advice I can give is just stay on top of your realtor to make sure they're staying on top of this, the sellers realtor to make sure everything is going to be ready to go readily accessible. With no issues. Here's another thing to be aware of is there dogs on the property. If there's dogs in the yard, the inspectors probably not going to go in the yard, if it's a big dog. So that's another thing. If the sellers are going to leave, and they leave their dogs behind, that's another limitation. If there's a big dog in the yard, and he's not friendly, if he's barking crazy, crazy, I'm not going to go in that backyard. So once again, you want to make sure everything is ready to go for you. This is your time to look at the house with your inspectors, and make sure you know all the information and get all the facts of the condition of the house. So it's important to understand what you hired your home inspector to do. And that is why there's what's called an inspection agreement in place that usually gets read and accepted digitally before the inspection day happens. Because, you know, if you don't read that, and then you just have all these ideas in your head, because maybe your dad told you or your uncle Bob told you or, or maybe one of your friends just bought a house and they think they're experts now. So maybe they told you about oh, hey, make sure your make sure your home inspector gets up on the telephone pole, make sure those wires are secure between your house and in the telephone pole. Okay? It's really important to under just read the inspection agreement, it's going to probably come with a what's called a standards of practice, which is what the the little list of what we look at, we all follow. So because we're in California, we follow the Korea standards of practice. And that's going to cover the five major systems of the house such as roofing, electrical, plumbing, heating, and cooling, and foundation. So a lot of times what happens when I show up, is I say hi to everybody, how are you? My name is John, this is what I'm going to do today, it's going to take me probably two, two and a half hours for this house. Unless it's a really big house, it'll take longer, I like to be very upfront with that to let people know, hey, look, if you got something to do, go ahead and do it. Because I'll still be here when you get back. So if you got to run some errands, by all means go run those errands. I don't need anybody there for me to do my job, all I need the sellers to do is make the home completely accessible. And I can do it without any help from my clients from the realtors, anybody. So nobody needs to be at the inspection. However, I do recommend if you can't make the beginning of the inspection definitely show up towards the end. So your home inspector can go over his findings and let you know the condition of the house and answer your questions because we can't answer your questions until after the inspection is over. Because we have to look at the entire house to get the entire picture of the condition of the house. So this is what happens when the buyer doesn't show up. Now understand the buyer read the agreement hopefully and and then made the payment which is great. So now your home inspector shows up and he starts working and all of a suddenly the buyers parents show up or or cousins or uncles or sisters or brothers and they're like you know, can I show you something? I'm like What do you want to show me and they take me over to the water pond. Yeah, we noticed the water ponds not working. Oh, well, that's not included in the home inspection. Oh, okay. Well, can you check the fire pit too because we can't seem to turn it on? Well, that's not included in the home inspection either. So this is the importance of understanding what to expect. That happens a lot when mom and dad shows up when the buyers can't show up. And it's actually kind of funny. It's always the same list routine list of questions. And oh, by the way, we noticed the swimming pool tiles are falling off. Well, you're yours son didn't hire me to inspect the pool. I gave him the option. But he said no. So I won't be inspecting that either. And they kind of look at me like, wow, I just showed you three things and you don't look at any of them. Yes, when I don't look at those three things. But I'm going to look at probably 200 other things in the house. If you let me get back to work. Let's discuss what you should not expect your home inspector to expect. Number one swimming pool. Don't expect your home inspector to include that with your home inspection. It's not part of the house. So don't expect that. A lot of home inspectors do offer pool inspections as a separate service for an additional fee. And that's fine. But just make sure you clarify that when you hire your home inspector, the home does have a pool. Not all information listed online, shows everything about the house. And some listings do not have very good photos. So your home inspector may look up the property may not see that it has a pool. So once again, we don't want you to be disappointed. We just need all the facts when you call to hire us or when your realtor calls to hire us. That way there we can set expect expectations for everybody let you know right away what we're not going to cover. So you can get the other specialists there to cover the systems we do not cover. Next thing would be fireplace, a lot of inspectors would do a visual of the fireplace, I do not. I think inspecting the fireplace for home inspector is pointless. Because every time the home inspector is finished with your fireplace, he's gonna recommend you get a chimney specialist anyway. So I kind of put that up front with my customers and let them know right away, I'm not going to talk about the fireplace, I'm not going to look at the fireplace or the chimney. You need a specialist out there. I'm not inspecting that part of the house. So that's another thing both parties need to be clear on. So you can get a chimney specialist there. The same time as your home inspection. It's the smartest thing you can do is get a level two chimney inspection. And then lawn sprinklers. lawn sprinklers are not part of your house, therefore your landscaping, they should not be assumed to be part of the home inspection. This is my most commonly asked question at every house. Oh, did you check the sprinklers? No, I did not. I did not check the sprinklers. So that's something you can have a discussion with with your gardener. After you take possession of the house, maybe you can hire the sellers gardener if he's any good. You know, maybe just keep that service going and have them test everything right in front of you. To show you everything is working as intended and it's not leaking all over the yard. Then let's discuss solar panels. Solar panel systems are not part of a home inspection. They actually need to be looked at by I always recommend call the installer haven't come back and just take a look at everything. And make sure everything's working as intended. Because a home inspector has no way of knowing if the solar panels are working as intended. And then some homes, some bigger homes and fire areas may have fire sprinkler systems installed inside the home. That's another thing we do not test. We did not inspect the pipes. Of course, if we can see a pipe in an attic and we see it might be dripping. Or maybe the sprinkler head might be dripping or there's stains around the drywall. We'll bring that to your attention. But we're not there to test the fire sprinkler system. We're just looking for any evidence of water damage like we would during the regular inspection anyway. Those are the biggest things that are not part of the home inspection. Other homes may have you know some other accessories outside auxilary buildings, stuff like that. Like we're not gonna inspect your tool shed that's in the backyard, you know, we're not going to inspect a horse stable unless the inspector specifically says he can do that for you and so forth. We don't do those types of things. We're there for the main living area, which is the main house. If there's an adu auxilary dwelling unit, which is Very popular nowadays, like a lot of people convert the garages that can be part of the home inspection. If it's called out, and you let your home inspector know that it's there. Many times I show up to house I asked the people on the phone, Hey, is it a single family? Yes, it is. And I show up and there's adu in the backyard. While you won't inspect that, then I gotta charge you additional fee. Because now I'm looking at two water heaters, two furnaces, and two kitchens, multiple bathrooms, and other roof to look at maybe an attic. Maybe it has a crawlspace. Who knows. So it's more work, so it's more money. So it's always good to be very upfront with your home inspector when you hire him. So they have a really good idea of what they're walking into. Let's talk about some more limitations. For your home inspector and other inspectors, you may have invited the home inspection party. So if it's an occupied home, there's going to be furniture, of course, you know, personal belongings, cars, storage, all kinds of stuff around the house, inside the house, in the garage. So for example, if this particular house has a lot of storage up against the exterior walls, around the property, well, those walls can't be looked at. And, you know, we can't comment on something we can't see. So once again, it's a visual inspection. So we'll try and hopefully we can see the siding, whether it's stucco, wood, whatever it might be. That's our goal is to look at the whole property for you, the whole house for you. And when an occupied home, is what we're inspecting, it comes with many limitations, that being one of them. Another one might be, you know, some people have a lot more stuff than other people. Some people have a mild case of hoarding, sometimes there's excessive hoarding. And this really limits what we can tell you about the house. So in that case, you know, we do our inspection, we tell you what we did find. And we also let you know, hey, look, we couldn't look here, we couldn't look there, we couldn't look over there for these reasons. So when you actually take possession of the house, you could, you know, find that some of those areas that were covered by storage, have damage, or need attention in some way. So those are things you can expect if you're inspecting an occupied home. And another thing is, sometimes we can't get into the attic, the attic access is blocked, or there is no attic access, because somebody decided to seal it off. So that's another limitation right there. When it comes to garages, garages are part of the home inspection, whether it's detached or attached, a lot of times people put everything they have in inside their garage, which means we can't see the walls, all's we can see is, you know, what's a big pile of storage, typically all we can see. So those are just realistic limitations that you should expect, if the home you're buying is currently occupied by the seller. Another limitation that could happen is reaching electrical panels, we definitely want to take a look at your electrical panels, sub panels if there is any. And a lot of times these were blocked by storage, sometimes there's a frigerator in front of a sub panel and a house or just a bunch of storage outside where you can't even get to it. So you know that's that's unfortunate. And it definitely causes a little bit of doubt and, and disappointment with the, with the buyers when I have to tell them that because I don't like I don't like telling people that couldn't look at something. But anyway, that's the reality of inspecting an occupied home a lot of limitations. And you may see something when you move into an empty house that was not able to be viewed by the inspector during the inspection. So those are things you definitely want to keep in mind. Another couple of things I want to cover is what you should not expect from your home inspector is to comment on cosmetic issues. If I see a door inside of a house and it's scratched or something but the door still works, I'm not going to write that up that's just cosmetic you can sand it or paint it or something like that. So that's that's commonly brought up oh, there's a hole in the wall it's drywall this patch it you know, it's it's not hurting the house in any way. It's just there. So those are the things that I don't want a home I have to think, oh, John's gonna tell me that well, I don't think I really need to tell you that it's pretty obvious somebody punched a hole in the wall or the doorknob went to the wall or something like that. So, cosmetic stuff is not what we're there for, unless it's damage, okay, if the door is actually damaged and does not work, well then I'm going to write that up. Okay, so that wraps up this episode seven. And once again, I want to go back to the paragraph nine B of the California Association of Realtors, California Residential Purchase Agreement. Once again, the seller shall make the property available for all buyer investigations. That means you seller shall have water, gas, electricity, and all operable pilot lights on for buyers investigations and through the date. Possession is made available to the buyer. Keep that in mind. Say that to your realtor. Remind them that that paragraph is theirs. Maybe they forgot. But that's the key here is to make sure that home is ready for your time to inspect it. Get all the facts about the house before you proceed with the transaction. So thanks again for listening. And if you're new to the podcast check in once a week we should have a new one for you. Always based on home buyers, home owners, home inspectors and realtors and I do have a YouTube channel as well. That's home inspection authority inspection authority. We'll find some videos that are helpful home maintenance videos. Hilarious what were they thinking videos that I filmed during a home inspection when I find something really ridiculously done. So check those things out. Like and Subscribe if you like the channel as and if you subscribe, you'll get notifications on any new videos which I try to do also, once a week. That's it for now.