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Don’t Lead With Your Chin
By the time a home inspector feels the need to summon me to deal with an unreasonable client, he has generally already bent over backwards to try to mollify him. Generally, this takes the form of offering a. to return the inspection fee or b. to pay for “half” of the repair or c. to…
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Everything’s Negotiable!
My recent post, When Attorneys Amend Your Agreement, prompted this question from Las Vegas inspector, Gordy Zorn: Joe, My question is how can anyone alter a contract except for the company who wrote it up in the first place? When buying a house, you have to sign a contract and you can’t pick and choose…
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Make Sure Your Client Reads Your Inspection Report
It’s always a pleasant surprise to hear from folks who frequent this site because otherwise I would never know who is reading my musings, where in the wide world they are doing it or whether they are resonating with my target audience. The other day I got an email from a reader in Seoul, Korea…
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A Tale Of Two Inspectors
Last November I spoke at a home inspection conference on the Left Coast. As almost always happens, two inspectors who were in attendance at that conference subsequently had claims two-and-a-half months later. Both inspectors informed me when they notified me of the claim that they had been at the conference, enjoyed my presentation very much…
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Beware Of The Streisand Effect
Because we live in an age where folks can vent their ill-founded outrage against service providers anonymously, instantly and globally with a few strokes on a computer keyboard, businessmen and women can now add “defamation” to “death and taxes” as a new “certainty”. And there is no shortage of online venues where these oh-so-put-upon umbrage…
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A Deck Collapse, Now . . .
One of my inspector friends recently called me with some disturbing news. Both his former client and the client’s insurance company were suing him over an inspection that he had performed in July of 2008. The inspection was pretty standard, a few issues but nothing not easily and inexpensively corrected. The property had a rear…
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Who Should Pay For Arbitrations?
After reading one of my archival posts on Arbitration, Connecticut home inspector Martin Greenberg wrote: “Joe, I recently attended a CT Law course taught by an attorney. He indicated that the AAA has recently changed its practices and is now looking to the defendant for a substantial sum of money as the case initiates. He…
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Is E & O Insurance A Waste Of Money? Part Deux
My recent post, Is E & O Insurance A Waste Of Money, prompted this comment from Arizona Home Inspector, Jeff Byfield: Joe my question is, if you didn’t have insurance would you even be considered in these frivolous law suits that greedy people and unscrupulous attorneys pull you into? What can they really sue you…
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Elementary, My Dear Watson!
Around the first of the year, one of my home inspector training Law and Disorder Seminar graduates alerted me to a television show that had recently begun airing on HGTV. Coincidentally, I had actually been vaguely aware of the show from the torrent of threads appearing on home inspection message boards whose general consensus seemed…
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Myth # 2 The Limitation of Liability Clause Is the Greatest Thing Since Night Baseball
There is absolutely nothing that a home inspector likes better than limiting her liability. And there is nothing that limits a home inspector’s ability to make money more than clinging to this completely unnecessary clause that is way past its sell-by date. Home inspectors love limitation of liability clauses – also known as exculpatory clauses…
