One inspector was evaluating an HVAC unit and determined it was relatively new, about three to four years old. But the air handler coils were dirty. The inspector recommended cleaning and maintenance to extend the unit’s functional life, estimating about $450 in home inspection repair costs.
Eight months later, after the client had purchased the home, the unit’s condition worsened. It needed a total replacement.
What happened? As it turned out, the unit was actually 13 to 14 years old—10 years older than the inspector had guessed. Additionally, the costs to replace the HVAC far exceeded his home inspection repair estimates. Instead of $450, the client paid nearly $5,500 to get the HVAC working again.
Despite waiting eight months to address his after-inspection repair advice, the client insisted the inspector was at fault. He should’ve disclosed the HVAC’s correct age and more accurate costs and methods to keep the system running, the client argued.
This inspector learned an important lesson: The more you discuss home inspection repair cost estimates and methods, the more liability you expose yourself to.
Can home inspectors do repairs?
No, they can’t. Performing your own home inspection repairs strictly violates many standards of practice (SOPs) and insurance requirements. It conflicts with codes of ethics and can cause you to lose coverage altogether. We elaborate below.
Do home inspectors give repair estimates or guidance?
Sometimes. Lots of home inspectors previously worked in construction- or handyman-related fields. They’re tempted to go beyond identifying potential defects by telling clients how to repair those defects and how much it will cost. It’s a tricky instinct for many inspectors to escape, said Ditanyan Sye, owner of DS Home Inspection Services and instructor at the College of Southern Maryland.
“I have this conversation all the time. My students ask, ‘What caused that [defect]?’” Sye said. “Who cares? That’s not what we’re here for.”
As a home inspector, you’re naturally inclined to help people. It’s what inspires many to become home inspectors in the first place.
At the same time, how you address home inspection repairs can open you up to problems. Here are a few reasons why.
Your inspection scope or SOPs are there to protect you. They tell clients what’s required and excluded from your service, which sets expectations. They also help inspectors stay consistent across inspections. In both ways, they play a critical role in limiting your liability against errors and omissions (E&O) claims.
Most standards discourage inspectors from determining repair methods, materials, and costs. They warn against conducting repairs needed after a home inspection, as well. Doing so can compromise your objectivity and pose a conflict of interest, which is prohibited under codes of ethics.
Since SOPs provide a minimum standard, going beyond your inspection standards will happen. However, you should not exceed your inspection standards unintentionally or without knowing the potential for claims. Inspectors, pay close attention to what you’re required and not required to do per your SOP, Sye advised.
“[Inspectors] can exceed the standards of practice. But the more they exceed the standards of practice, their liability increases, as well,” he said.
Meanwhile, claims aren’t the only things at risk. Overstepping your scope by performing or prescribing home inspection repairs can put your coverage at risk, too.
One of our insured inspectors was accused of missing several defects, all either reported already or outside his scope. He walked through every accusation with the client, referring directly to the report. But the client was furious and continued to push back. To pacify them, the inspector admitted fault and personally spent $1,000 repairing problems on his own.
After all that, the client still wasn’t happy. That’s when the inspector called us.
If he hadn’t admitted fault or performed repairs, there would’ve been little to no liability. He might’ve qualified for free pre-claims assistance. Instead, he repaired first and reported later. This jeopardized his coverage and complicated an otherwise-easy claim.
Take note, inspectors. When you recommend specific home inspection repair methods, do your own repairs, provide a repair timeline, or estimate costs, you step outside the scope of a home inspector. In turn, you act more like a contractor, advisor, or consultant. If your insurance provider excludes contractor or consultant duties, acting in these capacities can jeopardize your coverage if you get a claim. It could also endanger your future insurability with that carrier. As a result, uninsurable inspectors may struggle to renew their licenses.
If you’re unsure what is or isn’t covered in your policy, don’t wait for a claim. Be proactive and ask.
For questions about coverage or what home inspectors are not allowed to do, check your insurance policy. Or, if you’re insured with InspectorPro, you can also chat with a member of the team by calling or filling out a form here.
The other risk with giving specific home inspection repair advice is that your efforts to help can actually make things worse.
Before getting too in-depth about repairs needed after a home inspection, consider the following scenarios.
First, imagine a client follows your instructions while performing repairs after a home inspection.
Even if they execute the repairs exactly as prescribed, your advice could be wrong. Or an inexperienced client could follow your advice poorly and make an even bigger mess. Despite causing the damages on their own free will, clients can still blame you for advising them.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t told me to make those repairs after my home inspection,” they could argue. “You gave me bad advice.”
Alternatively, they might ignore your advice altogether, then blame you for not communicating the repairs’ urgency. We share real examples of defects found through remodeling, repairs, and ignoring inspectors’ recommendations here.
Clients see you as an authority figure, Sye said. So if you give home inspection repair estimates, they’ll take those estimates seriously. They likely won’t consider that contractors often quote different prices for the same service, or prescribe different repair methods for one defect.
Estimate how much the home inspection repairs will cost, and you risk adopting liability if those estimates are inaccurate.
For example, let’s say your client chooses not to negotiate their home purchase because they thought the repair costs were manageable enough to handle solo. If the sale closes and that number far exceeds what they anticipated, they’re going to be upset with their inspector, Sye explained.
“I wouldn’t have bought this house if I knew the HVAC would cost nearly $5,500 to repair,” they could argue, like in our earlier story. “You said it would only cost $450. You owe me for the total repair costs”
And let’s not forget doing the repairs on your own.
Some inspectors believe if a home inspection repair is minor enough, they should do it themselves and save their clients the trouble. But, in their efforts to make things right, they run the risk of causing further damage—and losing coverage.
One of our insured inspectors faced this exact dilemma after the clients had issues with their new dishwasher. They called their inspector, who’d previously reported it to be in working order.
As a gesture of good faith, the inspector returned to the house with his tool bag and pulled out the dishwasher to investigate. He found water under the appliance and tried to repair the leak. In the process, he broke the dishwasher’s soap dispenser.
Within hours of him pushing the dishwasher back in and leaving, the inspector got a call. The garage near the kitchen was suffering severe water intrusion. Water soaked the garage floor and ceiling; it even swelled the backyard door until it could no longer open. What started as a problem outside his scope snowballed into a water damage claim, potentially from his attempt to fix it.
We sent a denial of liability letter on the inspector’s behalf. Unfortunately, because the inspector had acted as a contractor and performed repairs, he lost coverage for the claim. He paid for the resolution out of pocket.
Home inspectors and repairs walk in a precarious balance. If you have relevant experience, you don’t want to report so passively that it becomes a disservice to your client. But you also don’t want to step too far outside your scope by giving advice or taking action that could hurt your business.
To tackle home inspection repairs while minimizing your liability, remember these tips.
Don’t perform home inspection repairs yourself. Period.
When offering repair-related advice, don’t provide a specific opinion about a defect’s severity, a system’s age, or something’s life expectancy. Avoid estimating repair timelines and costs or suggesting specific methods, too.
To this end, Jonathan Hallmark of Hallmark Inspections in Texas never speaks in absolutes. Rather, he proposes what the problem could be. Ultimately, he leaves the final diagnosis and prognosis to a specialist.
If you need help avoiding specific home inspection repair estimates, get descriptive, said Nick Gromicko, founder of the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (InterNACHI).
For example, you might say, “My sister lives in this area and had a very similar situation. It cost her X amount. She called specialists and got a few estimates, so your repairs might look different.” Or, “I could be wrong here, but I think it’s going to cost somewhere around $5,000.”
The more descriptors and generalizing words you put in front of the dollar sign, the less specific you are, and the better you protect yourself, Gromicko said.
Similarly, David Roth of Hudson Valley Home Inspections in New York generalizes and keeps his report comments simple. He doesn’t explain why something isn’t right; that’s the contractor’s job. This helps him avoid overstating or understating how bad a defect is.
“ Your inspection comments should be as short and concise as possible,” Roth said. “Everything you need to say should be able to be done in a paragraph.”
Concision serves many purposes. Not only does it help you stick to the facts, follow your SOP, and avoid prescriptive writing or accidental bias. But it also makes your reports easier to read and understand. Moreover, writing reports that clients want to read deters claims (and defends you against them).
“ What most inspectors don’t understand is that you could be an engineer and have all the knowledge to know every possible permutation of what could be wrong. It doesn’t make a difference to [clients],” Roth said. “Is it right? Is it wrong? That’s all they care about. So trying to act like you’re smart and tell them everything, especially if you’re not an engineer and you don’t have that license to cover you, can expose you.”
Check out our past article for more report writing best practices.
Your comments are concise. You’re cautious about classifying the severity of a defect in your report. And you don’t tell clients how to fix them. How do you know your clients will take a defect or after-inspection repair seriously?
Let your inspection photos do the talking.
Take photos of defects, non-defects, or even entire rooms and systems to back up your comments. If a client accuses you of not reporting that foundation crack, and they neglect to do home inspection repairs or have it evaluated professionally, your photos will defend you if it turns into something serious. They may even reference your photos when hiring a contractor.
“ Take the pictures,” Roth said. “ You’re not going to catch everything. You never are. So you have to be as thorough as possible. And the pictures are how people realize that you were.”
Body cams and 360 cameras are popular tools inspectors use to capture the big picture. Though he doesn’t include the footage in his reports, Roth’s team stores body cam footage to prove everything they do and say. In fact, when a client falsely accused his team of breaking a well pump, Roth used the footage to prove they never touched the valve.
We analyze the best cameras for home inspectors and how to store inspection photos and videos on our blog.
Having spent three decades in construction trades, Roth knows that related experience can be an asset. But new inspectors with construction or handyman backgrounds often struggle to separate those jobs and responsibilities, Sye agreed.
Don’t wear your specialist hat to your inspection job, Sye tells his students. Even if your past experience seems relevant, don’t suggest home inspection repair methods or estimate costs.
Furthermore, don’t tell clients you have specialist experience. In doing so, you may lead them to assume you’ll catch or repair any problem related to that field.
“ Stay in your lane. You’re a home inspector, not a contractor. It’s not your job to tell people how to fix things. You might not even know why it’s wrong,” Roth said. “As a home inspector, all you can do is see that it’s there.”
“The client will attempt to push you and pull you out. And then, as they pull you out, you step into the lane of liability,” Sye said. “I stay in my lane. … In this lane, I have no blinkers. There’s no reason for me to go to the left or to the right.”
If someone really pushes back for home inspection repair estimates, consider a very broad ballpark. Still, always tie it back to a qualified professional, Sye and Roth agreed.
“ It could be $500, it could be $50,000. I’m not the contractor. The contractor knows what he’s going to have to do, and he’s going to repair accordingly,” Roth might say.
“ I am qualified to identify that this is not how it should look. But I’m not qualified to actually provide an estimate for how to repair it, because there could be a multitude of ways that it can be addressed,” Sye tells clients.
Also, if you choose to give a broad ballpark, keep it out of your written report, Gromicko said.
The goal isn’t to sound secretive. Rather, keeping these comments verbal helps separate them from your official inspection service, report, and scope. By generalizing and keeping it out of your written report, you can guide clients while minimizing your risk, Gromicko advised.
Home inspection repairs aren’t the only ones you can redirect. You can (and should) refer out home inspection repair cost estimates, too!
For common repairs needed after a home inspection, consider tools like Repair Pricer or TheQwikFix. These tools use third-party specialists to provide ballpark numbers to real estate agents. This equips the client and agent with negotiation fuel, while relieving the inspector of liability.
Do give clients a heads-up, though: Once they’re ready to hire a specialist for home inspection repairs, it doesn’t hurt to get multiple estimates.
Also, pay special attention to how you refer them out. Roth, for example, does not refer to handymen or tell people to perform their own repairs. Instead, he encourages clients to find a qualified contractor.
“I was a handyman for many, many years, so it’s not just a trade,” Roth said. “There’s a definite place for them. But, if I say you have an outlet that’s miswired, and I tell you to have a handyman fix it and your house burns down, it puts it back on me because I told you to use a handyman, as opposed to telling you to use a qualified electrician.”
“I don’t know who your handyman is. I don’t know his qualifications,” he said.
Another warning: Don’t treat referrals as a catch-all solution. If you overstep your scope by performing home inspection repairs, estimating repair costs, or opining about a defect’s severity, referring to a specialist won’t absolve you of all liability.
One client asked their inspector to come back and confirm that a hired repair company had adequately fixed the foundation defects he’d reported. Although the inspector said everything “looked good,” the foundation issues returned with fervor. The client sued in a $100,000 home inspection claim.
If someone requests a home re-inspection after making repairs, how should you navigate discussing home inspection repairs?
Re-inspections should only evaluate specifically agreed-upon items or areas. So when clients want follow-up after making a home inspector’s recommended repairs, the inspector shouldn’t deviate from those items.
Additionally, don’t opine or make workmanship determinations about home inspection repairs. Avoid categorizing those items as “repaired,” “functional,” or “fixed.” Instead, report that the original deficiency is no longer visible. After all, you never know if a client DIY’d it or hired a quality contractor. Plus, more defects could be hiding just out of sight.
Read our guide to re-inspection agreements and reporting for more risk management tips.
You might feel like it’s a disservice to your client referring them to a contractor or other professional. What if you recommend a contractor, and the contractor doesn’t find anything wrong?
In Roth’s experience, a customer will never be mad because a contractor followed up and nothing was wrong. They would be upset, however, if he didn’t say anything, and a contractor found a serious problem later. He would always prefer a qualified expert to say he’s wrong, than for a severe defect to go unnoticed because he said nothing.
At InspectorPro, we feel the same way about reporting conflicts. If you get into a conflict, no matter how small, give us a call. We’d rather help you pacify an upset client early, than for you to call after home inspection repairs have gone wrong.
Looking for an insurance provider you can confide in? Apply online to get a free quote with InspectorPro.
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