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Is Your Home Inspector Certified?
Everybody wants to get value for their money. The bigger the investment, the more value you will want. So when it is time to purchase a home, you will probably hire a home inspector. However, have ever wondered who inspects the inspector? How do you know an inspector knows their stuff? We have all heard about fraudulent inspections or inspectors who flat out miss an obvious problem. Here are some ways to make sure this doesn’t happen to you.
Make sure your inspector has all the proper training. Make sure they are up to date on residential construction techniques and systems. They have training institutes where they learn about all aspects of home inspection from foundation issues, black mold, air conditioning, pest control and any number of other inspectional issues.
Any good inspector should have a current certification from a reputable institute. The National Institute of Building Inspectors is the most common but there are a couple of others. In fact, certified inspectors are required annually retrain and recertify. If they do not have this, then they are probably not professional. Check out our home equity loan rates for a great rate today.
A qualified inspector should have some sort of written guarantee backing up their findings. If not, you have no basis for grievance if they miss something. If you do have it in writing, then you at least have something to fall back on it there is a problem.
Home inspectors can purchase Errors and Omissions insurance. This functions as a sort of malpractice coverage. Any inspector without it probably doesn’t have formal training. Additional types of insurance include general liability and sometimes workmen’s comp. To put it plainly, if they don’t have insurance, you shouldn’t hire them.
Beware of conflict of interest. Don’t hire an inspector that also does part time contracting, or vice versa. You don’t want them taking advantage of a situation to create more income for themselves. For that matter, watch for tick-tack findings, you don’t want them getting kickbacks from contractors for jobs.
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