my parents bought a house, and the inspector who came out said everything was fine, and that the roof was in good condition.
6 months later my parents had to spend $35k to replace the entire roof, and soffit as it had lots of plywood rot, leaks, etc.
Is it possible to effectively sue the inspector for missing the obvious?
what kind of lawyer is best to handle this? anyone have any insight
kys
Don't worry, I will keep my sanity.
Thanks for the concern.
Ask a lawyer. The building inspector made your parents sign a piece of paper that says you can't sue him for anything.
This isn't always a binding contract though because it's ridiculous, but it depends on your jurisdiction and just how he worded it.
I'd agree with this. Had a building inspector miss some really obvious shit in the attic but he didn't call it out and we got vermin because of it. Confronted him, he was like "I'm not liable". Fortunately, the realtor stepped up and covered the cost of repair from her commission but still, didn't need to be done if they would have done their goddamn job.
>The building inspector made your parents sign a piece of paper that says you can't sue him for anything.
pretty much this. They can't be held liable for a damned thing. It's a shitshow.
Good luck with the house.
You can absolutely sue the building inspector for deliberately deceiving you, for colluding with the seller, etc, but I'll eat my own wiener and balls if you actually wind up holding one legally responsible for missing even glaringly obvious problems. Best case scenario-- you wind up recovering the fee he charged you.
i called a dozen law offices, its very hard to find a real estate lawyer that does litigation as well.
waiting on a few call backs. made this thread in the meatime.
you can absolutely sue the building inspector in my state.
why are you calling real estate attorneys they only do transnational bullshit. Call a construction attorney....
t. Construction lawyer
transactional*
here's another hint.. once you get a lawyer on the phone the first thing they are going to ask you is what's in your contract
contract says roof is fine.
Not what it says about the roof, what it says about liability.
its a word doc template that goes over the condition of the house, there is zero legal wording in it.
So there was no agreement signed before the inspection was done?
It depends on what was specifically written in the report in regards to the roof.
Yes, you can sue inspectors for negligence. No, their fine print limiting liability doesn’t actually do that, it’s just a deterrent.
Reports usually have photos of the underside of the roof from the attic as well as photos of the shingles. Post them.
You and your kin are wienersuckers t. Structural Engineer
errors and omissions policies for that sort of dipshit only cover his fee, so your parents will at best get 500 bucks back and have to pay some shylock $1000 to file paperwork. good luck!
Our home inspector was supposedly "the best" as recommended by our realtor.
Funny, he missed a bunch of shit that we ended up discovering over the past year.
I wonder if he was bribed by, or felt sorry for, the previous owner of the house who was very sick.
> recommended by our realtor
There’s your problem, fishbulb. You relied on someone recommended by someone else who had a vested interest in the purchase being completed.
As for the rest, inspections are largely a lark. Useful if you’ve only lived in an apartment, or if daddy didn’t love you. But they only catch visibly obvious problems, because nobody’s going to let Inspector Joe McRando poke holes in walls to take a peek at things.
>nobody’s going to let Inspector Joe McRando poke holes in walls to take a peek at things.
that isn't their job moron. they find things like a roof that needs repair or needs to be replaced, so you don't have to get on the roof or crawl around in the attic or crawlspace. They don't pretend to guarantee that hidden flaws do not exist.
My inspector sent a boroscope into the walls in the bathroom through the plug box to check for mold, kek. There are decent inspectors out there, but they're very very few and far between.
You're right about the realtor recommendation. I had a realtor that was trying to get me to hire her husband as an inspector, and he even "tagged along" to look at a house. On paper the place was nice but there was a bunch of hillbillied shit done to it that turned me off. One of the things they had done was to open up two rooms into a living room, which at first I didn't think much of, but reflecting later it was apparent that they had removed a load-bearing column (hence an odd spot in the ceiling) which was the cause of cracks around a doorway in line with it. Place was structurally compromised and the dude didn't catch it. I didn't hire him. The guy I did hire crawled all through an attic in late spring in Florida for me, which I'm glad I didn't have to do, and had a few good catches.
>the best" as recommended by our realtor.
>Using the inspector the realtor recommends
Yikes!
lol this. i wish there were a less cringey expression for not understanding basic game theory, but jesus imagine trusting someone who's incentives are opposite your own with life altering levels of money
do you have any idea how corrupt the entire real estate trade is? American medicine is the only sleezier trade
Yup. It’s completely israeliteed. And dont forget how the local government is involved in the scam too. They’ll hold land for free for developers who cant find a sucker to pay an exprbitant price for their patch of trashmound/swamp/desert. Then when the time comes to find a sucker to sell to, the govenrment will use all sorts of legalese to avoid charging the unpaid tax to the developer. Then the new buyer will somehow end up with it.
Unironically buying land in a northern european country is much less corrutp, and is some of the biggest evidence of what the US has turned into.
did you hire the inspector directly, or did he come on recommendation from the realtor? If it's the latter, then you failed to recognize how predatory and shady the entire industry is.
Not a lawyer OP, but I bought a house recently and looked into this. Apparently in most states, the inspector's liability is capped at whatever you payed for the inspection. So if you payed $100 for the inspection, the most you can sue for is $100. Basically inspectors aren't worth dog shit. You are better off having a professional inspect within their domain the home you are buying. So someone like a HVAC tech or plumber.
>. So someone like a HVAC tech or plumber.
This. Any time you consider buying a house you should first hire an HVAC guy, a plumber, an electrician, a roofer, a foundation guy, a landscaper, a structural engineer, etc., or you are going to get screwed.
sure, let me spend $2k and wait 2 weeks for these boozos to come over.
then what? the seller isnt going to lower their price cause the heater is 17 years old. there are 10 people in line to buy this house who can afford to replace shit.
building inspectors come out and check basic shit, like the foundation, roof, etc. they are required by law.
you cant haggle the seller cause their dishwasher is old or the water heater hasnt been cleaned and is spewing out dirty water.
you buy knowing your appliances are old, get home insurance that covers appliances, and hope the shit aint gonna fail in the first 2 years.
building inspectors also come with an IR camera and water detector to check for air/water leaks...
then why hiring an inspector at all, moron?
if there's 10 people waiting in line to get fricked up by the seller - let them
you are sour that you got stinged, knowing perfectly well you are going to get stinged
>let me spend $2k
Still less then then 35k it cost OP's parents to repair the roof.
>you cant haggle the seller cause their dishwasher is old or the water heater hasnt been cleaned and is spewing out dirty water.
Correction anon, YOU can't.
>not checking yourself
Home inspectors are a scam. Don't pay for them, just look at the shit yourself.
Construction gay here.
There is nothing you can do. This is very common. Missing an issue with the house is not grounds for a lawsuit and home inspectors are protected on many levels.
Additionally, in general home inspectors don't know fricking shit and can't be trusted. If you are really concerned about a purchase you should hire a general contractor with 20 years experience and have them look at the house before you purchase.
The trick to fricking with licensed professionals is to go after their licensures. Look up the procedures for filing a complaint against a building inspector in your state.
I filed complaints against a used car dealer who refused to give me a title, which resulted in me missing an out of state internship. I got his dealers license and business license both revoked.
I had something similar, but my repair bill is $70k USD. i can't find a lawyer to take my case.
If they had to replace the roof because it was obvious that it was leaking then the liable party is the previous owner.
>Is it possible to effectively sue the inspector for missing the obvious?
Is it possible? Sure. You can sue anyone for anything, for the most part.
Will it be effective? That depends on what's stated in the agreement your parents signed with the inspector.
Chances are they might be able to recover what they paid the inspector, which may not even cover the costs of taking the matter to court.
I recently bought a trailer used and the realtor told me bla bla 'you should/can always hire an inspector,' I told him I would do it myself (with him) while we breezed through the trailer for the showing. I could tell it had some problems, didn't need to hire anyone to tell me that. I'm in it rn for better or worse.
>Is it possible to effectively sue the inspector for missing the obvious?
Were the defects visible or did the previous owner hide them? Inspectors are only allowed to do a visual inspection. They can pry stuff apart to see if it's rotted behind. They can't poke holes to see if something is rotten. So owners hide shit and hope you won't notice.
Long story short - you sue the previous owners.
This this this!
OP stop touching shit and take photos of everything. Try to find evidence that they knew. Drywall fixes where it leaked, insulation that has been disturbed, or any trace that someone went up the attic. Take pictures of the underlayment from the attic.
>i want a house
>oh no now I have a house
Snarky greentext aside, imagine a world where building inspectors were liable the way you want this guy to be.
No one would do that job.
Doesnt make any sense.
A world where one isn't required to gain a working knowledge of a thing just isnt going to be comfortable all the time for those who want to rely on others not themselves.
Theres not really a fix for this. Additionally, just cuz a contractor said whole roof, soffits and all, 35k doesnt actually mean all of that needed to be replaced any more than a building inspector saying "i dont see any problems with the roof" means "this roof will never need a dime of maintenance" Thats just a thing they said. Its not what the inspector said.
But its not anyones fault we cant pick up the pieces after if ultimately theres a limp wrist guiding the rudder.
There were no pictures with the inspectors report?
Kek
I mean, yeah, he doesnt sound great but hes not the reason your parents wrote a check
Before you pay for a service is when you dispute
For the right price the inspection report would come with an offer of insurance to pay for repairs. I wouldn't want that it would be more expensive in the long run like renting a water heater.
Were there multiple quotes from multiple contractors?
With no pictures, why is is more likely the inspector missed things than it is you were charged 35k by a contractor to go the whole 9 yards when a much more targeted, lower profit margin smaller scale fix would have worked?
This is the problem with you not knowing anything and wanting to sue.
The only verifiable part of this is you feel like a victim and theres 35k of roof on the house
you mean there is 15k of roof and they got scammed going as well as coming. the kind of people who will pay $175k for Anderson windows.
Correct.
A contractor saying its all fricked give me 35k and a home inspector missing an area or two is the most likely story in my mind.
But yeah. 35k for a roof?? They took it hard.
You shouldnt pay that for anything, ever.
You don't know the size of the roof, nor how big the fricked soffit was. And given how fricked construction costs are these days, I'm not surprised by 35k.
Signed a contract full of fine print but missed the part about not being responsible for "pre-existing conditions."
The same form your doctor's uses.
so one, you can sue anyone for anything. you can sue me for the roof damage. you're asking can you successfully get a judgement against.
second you should first look to the disclosure document. did the seller say the roof was fine? if they knowingly did not disclose damage or necessary repair, you can definitely get a judgement against them. proving it might be difficult.
home inspection is a racket, they are in bed with realtors and their goal is to get you to buy the house. They don't inspect everything, so it's possible roof wasn't even included in yours. It's going to be very difficult to hold them accountable- if you could sue home inspectors for missing shit I'd be rich af rn because they've always missed things.
>so one, you can sue anyone for anything. you can sue me for the roof damage. you're asking can you successfully get a judgement against.
im diagnosing you with autism. please seek treatment
You can't fix stupid, anons.
Some people are born to be scammed and radiate it from every fiber of their beings.
Apparently OP made his way here from Reddit. I recommend triple booster shots for the whole family, if they have not had them already (LIKELY).
sounds to me, like you and your parents were too stupid to read the inspection.
every single inspection ive looked at has text that absolve them from any liability in the form of: "recommend a specialized inspector for further evaluation"
meaning, if they see a roof shingle that doesnt look so great, they say 'get a roof inspector to look at it'
same with water heaters or hvac, electric, ect... go read the fine print
>Is it possible to effectively sue the inspector for missing the obvious?
If it was obvious, why did your parents miss it?
I understand they were doing their due diligence but a harsh truth about real estate is that you can't trust inspectors or realtors unless they are your personal friends, and sometimes not even then.
When I buy property I do my own title lookups and will do an inspection myself on top of getting an inspector to look at the place. "Trust, but verify."
>a harsh truth is that corruption and scamming is tolerated by the courts
Like in brazil or mexico?
Home inspection is cushy and there are a lot of bullshitters sadly. Chances are he made you sign a contract/agreement. You won’t win, don’t waste your time.
Also your parents got scammed 35k for a roof, do your research.
If it's literally that bad then your parents are fricking moronic or lazy and should have looked at the house themselves. Have fun paying off your new 400k home.