This company did such an overly critical inspection of our home, we lost the sale of our house. I'd…read morelike to note first that there were a number of inaccuracies in his report. For example, he marked that the locking mechanism on our pocket door didn't sync with the latch, yet it does. The picture he included showed him holding the handle of the door, not the locking mechanism. Had he actually closed the door and tried locking it, he would have found that it worked. We were marked for loose toilets, and for the life of us, we can't find one loose toilet in our house. He noted that the screen door to the garage didn't have a self-closing mechanism and took a picture of an empty bracket near the top of the door. That bracket was empty because that mechanism had failed and was replaced closer to the bottom of the door. When he got done inspecting the door, it self-closed!! Yet, we got marked for it. Those are just a few examples; I could keep going.
Nothing major was wrong with the house, but we got marked for things like having a rug over a closed floor vent, a small dent in the year-old garage door (cosmetic issue, not a functional issue), and a loose doorknob on a closet door. He noted that the furnace and AC actually work fine, but had to throw in a note that he can't guarantee that they always will. Our water heater was professionally installed by a plumber 7 years ago, but because he couldn't find a certain tag on it, he wrote 2 paragraphs about how we probably didn't have it done correctly, it should be inspected by someone, it could have to be repaired or replaced, and it could hinder future sales. The installation of the water heater is documented and can be verified, as we went through the home warranty we got when we purchased the house. All in all, it added up to 145 items (remember, some of them weren't even accurate), and it actually appears that every measure was taken to deter the buyers from buying this house. The house was built in 1986, so we knew things would show up. We know some of the building materials from that time aren't what is used now. And most people would try to weed through it and say, "Loose doorknob, no big deal. Rug over vent, no big deal. Furnace and AC work, great. The electrical issues should be dealt with." But when the report is over 100 pages long with overly nitpicky items, it scares people off. That's not good, sound business.
I was upset with him the day of the inspection when I came back home, even before I got the report. He left my house messy and disorganized. He left the AC on 65 degrees, so it had been running and running for a few hours, and the house was freezing. He moved furniture and didn't move it back. He had lifted blinds to look at windows, and didn't close them when done. When the whirlpool jets in the bathtub (which we have never used) shot out debris and black junk, he didn't try to rinse it down the drain...he left it all over my clean tub. In the report, he claims to be a "respectful guest in the house," yet that wasn't the case in our house. I find it very unprofessional to go into someone's home and not leave it the way it was when you got there. Thank goodness I have the receipts in the form of the texts to my realtor from that day documenting these things.
I would never hire or recommend him based on his unprofessional nature in my house. I would also not recommend him to buyers who need an inspector based on the inaccuracies in this report and the overwhelming nature of his reporting. We've since had another home inspector to our house, and he debunked many items and even recommended legal counsel due to the number of inaccurate items on the report.
It might also be worth noting that the buyers said we'd have to come down $45,000 from the agreed-upon price based on his report. That's about how much it would cost to put in the pool they wanted. Interesting coincidence.
