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The Expense of Home Inspector Meritless Claim Defense
If you ever find yourself being named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging that you were professionally negligent in conducting your inspection of the plaintiff’s prospective home, I have really good news for you. You are going to win. The overwhelming majority of lawsuits alleging professional negligence that are actually tried to verdict result…
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The Six Home Inspection Claim Categories Are All Defensible
Rare is a home inspector training Law and Disorder Seminar that does not have a few – and often several – casualties of war among the attending home inspectors – the multi-front war between them, their unreasonable and unrealistic clients, their referring real estate agents and, all too frequently, their insurance companies. They all seem…
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Reputation Management: There’s an app for that!
One thing that I have decided after five years of total immersion in the trials and tribulations of home inspectors is that I could never be one. Now, my father was a union carpenter and worked for decades as such on literally thousands of houses constructed in Philadelphia, once known as the City of Homes,…
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Underbussing is Now a Reality TV Show!
There is a current television show whose host maligns home inspectors for not discovering defects he was only able to discover through using a sledgehammer and other intrusive means. Home inspectors were immediately taken aback by the show’s message, and rightfully so. Several asked me to watch a few episodes to gauge how the show…
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Dirty Harry and Home Inspection: You Don’t Need to Pay
There’s a scene in the original Dirty Harry movie that resonated with me when I first saw it and that I am frequently reminded of in my practice of advising home inspectors. Clint Eastwood, as Inspector Harry Callaghan, is hustling against a deadline set by a lunatic serial killer, based on the Zodiac killer that…
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Look at Me Now: Defendants Aren’t Always Guilty
A week or so ago, I received an email invitation to attend Alumni Weekend at my law school alma mater, the Temple University Beasley School of Law. And because this is my class’ Silver Anniversary year, there is additional hoopla planned for us. Attached to the email was a list of all of the members…
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Risk, Its Place in the Home Inspection Industry and How to Combat It
The recent earthquake that hit near Japan set me to thinking about emergency preparedness in general and disaster-preparedness, in particular. The earthquake-prone nation is being widely praised for the strength of its building codes which contemplate the need for buildings to be able to withstand these inevitable periodic massive shocks to their structural integrity. And…
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The Importance of Home Inspector E&O Insurance
I am continuously surprised at the number of inspectors who do not carry professional liability insurance or, as it is popularly known, Errors and Omissions Insurance for home inspectors (“E&O”). When I ask inspectors who attend my home inspector training at the Law and Disorder seminar whether or not they carry E & O insurance,…
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The Story of Joe Ferry’s ClaimIntercept and How to Receive It
When I first began presenting my home inspector training at the Law and Disorder Seminar back in 2007, many of the inspectors in attendance would approach me afterward and ask if they could retain my claim squashing services on a pre-paid basis – a pre-paid legal of sorts. While I appreciated the sentiment, I was…
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Caution: Clause Interactions May Be Hazardous To a Home Inspector’s Wealth
Over the past five years, I have probably reviewed the pre-inspection agreements of about 400 home inspectors, either because I was responding to a claim that was being made against them or because they wanted me to review their agreements for strength, comprehensiveness and enforceability. As a result, I make frequent research excursions via online…
