Any regulation at all

[Ben J. Gromicko]

Originally Posted by jpope

Much like the "limit of liability" that many inspector try to pass on to clients. If my contract says that I can only be held liable up to the amount of the inspection fee - even if the client agrees and signs the provision - state law will allow full recovery of damages in the case of negligence.
....
It's not a matter of changing the Real Estate Industry, it's about changing the law.

Right... Gross negligence or willful misconduct. Limited home warranties that incorporate a "limit of liability" clause do protect inspectors who have followed the Standards of Practice and have not done anything wrong (negligence and misconduct). Nothing (neither law nor warranties) protect inspectors when their client can prove gross negligence or willful misconduct. (The client must prove it). For example, a warranty can be used to protect an inspector from a complaint filed about a roof leak that occurs 3 months after the inspection. In that example, there's no negligence or misconduct; it's just an unfortunate event.
...
I can't change the CA law from the studios of NACHI.TV. But changing minds of CA real estate agents may help.

[Joe Farsetta]

Ben,

Listen to what an experienced and respected California inspector is saying to you.

Limited home warranties that incorporate a "limit of liability" clause do protect inspectors who have followed the Standards of Practice and have not done anything wrong (negligence and misconduct).

here we go again... You aint talking about the Mountain warantee thing again, are you?

[Ben J. Gromicko]

Originally Posted by jfarsetta

Ben,

Listen to what an experienced and respected California inspector is saying to you.



here we go again... You aint talking about the Mountain warantee thing again, are you?

[I'm only speaking from personal experience (as a PA inspector). I used AHW for years. (American Home Warranty is used by hundreds of inspectors I believe) And AHW has come through for me by paying for roof leaks that happened weeks after the inspection. That protection actually exists, and saved me from lawsuits many times.]

Back to the question of the topics for the course for real estate agents... It looks like I'll teach mostly from the CREIA website and their SOP. That's what Will Handly (an experienced and respected California inspector) is suggesting (post #5).

[Jeffrey R. Pope]

It doesn't have to be "gross" negligence or willful misconduct. In fact, even our E&O won't cover us for this type of instance.

CA law says that negligence is a "legal cause" of damage if it directly and in natural and continuous sequence produces or contributes substantially to producing such damage, so it can reasonably be said that if not for the negligence, the loss, injury or damage would not have occurred.

Right... Gross negligence or willful misconduct. Limited home warranties that incorporate a "limit of liability" clause do protect inspectors who have followed the Standards of Practice and have not done anything wrong (negligence and misconduct).

If I have not been negligent, I do not need the protection of a limited home warranty.

In 90% (or more) of the transactions I'm involved with, the buyer is provided with a home warranty by either the seller, sellers agent or buyers agent - even in today's REO market. I used to offer a warranty through AHW, but more often than not, a warranty was already included in the transaction. Multiple warranties on a single property cause trouble for the owner if/when a problem arises.

Now that I see the direction you're headed, I would suggest you continue with using the CREIA Standards, simply because they are more widely recognized in our state.

[Ben J. Gromicko]

[I included AHW warranties for most (if not almost all) of my inspections, even when there was a seller's warranty on the house. My client and their agent loved it because the AHW covered more, easy to make a claim, it did not have a deductible, and my clients simply received a $check, and there were no service contractors who worked for the warranty company. My clients actually stated that, "Well, if something goes wrong, I'm not going to use the seller's warranty, because I'lll have to pay the $90 deductible and jump through their hoops."]

Wow. The CREIA website is really great. And so is the SOP. Impressive. InterNACHI needs to get their SOP sh*t together.

[Nick Gromicko]

Funny. Be careful, readers won't understand that you were joking. I'll tell you the not so funny part. I bought their commercial SOP. I think they charged me $130. Anyway, when it arrived by CD (yes, they still use snail mail to send 1 document) it had a full size sheet of paper in the envelope that said "No Refunds." I thought, hm... that's odd. Then I looked at their 2 page SOP and understood. What a rip-off organization.

www.nachi.org/comsop.htm

[Keith Swift, PhD.]

Nick:
Thanks for clearing that up. Sarcasm doesn't translate that well in the written form. Ben had me going back over the CREIA SOp's for the umpteenth time.

[Ben J. Gromicko]

Ooooh. That's right, Nick. Good idea. I forgot about comsop. The course for CA real estate agents will be a teaching of the SOPs and Ethics of both commercial and residential.

Course Title: Commerical and Residential Standards of Practice of InterNACHI: What Every California Real Estate Agents Needs to Know About Their Certified Home Inspector"

Good?

[Ben J. Gromicko]

Originally Posted by kswift

The California building and professions code, Chapter 9.3, Section 7195 defines a home inspection as:

"a noninvasive, physical examination, performed for a fee in connection with a transfer, as defined in subdivision (e), of real property, of the mechanical, electrical, or plumbing systems or the structural and essential components of a residential dwelling of one to four units designed to identify material defects in those systems, structures and components."

Section §7195 (2) of the Cali Law states, "(2) "Home inspection," if requested by the client, may include an inspection of energy efficiency . Energy efficiency items to be inspected may include the following:
(A) A noninvasive inspection of insulation R-values in attics,
roofs, walls, floors, and ducts.
(B) The number of window glass panes and frame types.
(C) The heating and cooling equipment and water heating systems.
(D) The age and fuel type of major appliances.
(E) The exhaust and cooling fans.
(F) The type of thermostat and other systems.
(G) The general integrity and potential leakage areas of walls,
window areas, doors, and duct systems.
(H) The solar control efficiency of existing windows."

My concern is the word "may." If your client requests hires you to perform
a home inspection, do you include items listed a through h, including
the age of major appliances? Do CA clients expect to be told of
the age of all the major appliances from their home inspector? Or do
they understand that those items (a-h) are really just an option, and at
the discretion of the home inspector to include them in the report?

[Ben J. Gromicko]

I read some stuff on the CREIA site. They mention a California Coalition of Home Inspectors. But I can't find this (CCHI) on the web. Does anyone know about CCHI?

[whandley]

Originally Posted by bgromicko

Section §7195 (2) of the Cali Law states, "(2) "Home inspection," if requested by the client, may include an inspection of energy efficiency . Energy efficiency items to be inspected may include the following:
(A) A noninvasive inspection of insulation R-values in attics,
roofs, walls, floors, and ducts.
(B) The number of window glass panes and frame types.
(C) The heating and cooling equipment and water heating systems.
(D) The age and fuel type of major appliances.
(E) The exhaust and cooling fans.
(F) The type of thermostat and other systems.
(G) The general integrity and potential leakage areas of walls,
window areas, doors, and duct systems.
(H) The solar control efficiency of existing windows."

My concern is the word "may." If your client requests hires you to perform
a home inspection, do you include items listed a through h, including
the age of major appliances? Do CA clients expect to be told of
the age of all the major appliances from their home inspector? Or do
they understand that those items (a-h) are really just an option, and at
the discretion of the home inspector to include them in the report?

Ben;

No one uses the states information listed above. We all use CREIA, ASHI or INACHI SOP's. We also have contracts which list specifically items not included. Our inspection reports further list items not included. Between the SOP, Contract and Inspection Report, not much room for confusion.

I also understand you and Nick think CREIA and ASHI suck, but here in California the realtors don't. What can I tell ya. The inspectors industry affiliations just don't seem to matter much.

Thanks for your efforts, but I don't see 100K California Real Estate Agents watching NACHI.TV any time soon. I'm thinking your CE offerings will be added to a long list of options for real estate agents to obtain their CE requirements.

[Ben J. Gromicko]

Originally Posted by whandley

I don't see 100K California Real Estate Agents watching NACHI.TV any time soon. I'm thinking your CE offerings will be added to a long list of options for real estate agents to obtain their CE requirements.

I guess I'll just mark you down as "Undecided."

[Nick Gromicko]

I don't see 100K California Real Estate Agents watching NACHI.TV any time soon. I'm thinking your CE offerings will be added to a long list of options for real estate agents to obtain their CE requirements.

That exact quote was made about inspectors by ASHI's Scott Patterson out of TN about a year ago. Then this happened and his world changed: http://www.nachi.org/tnconted2008.htm

Real estate agents are cheap and we don't want to take off work to get our CE's in.

Unlike the home inspection crowd who actually come to learn, real estate agents often come just to keep their license. Letting them earn their CE's in their pajamas while promoting InterNACHI members? Go for it.

[whandley]

Online CE courses available from a few sources:

http://www.car.org/media/pdf/car_edu...let_online.pdf

http://www.worldwidelearn.com/contin...-estate-ce.htm

http://www.kaplanprofessionalschools...a/real-estate/

http://www.realestatece.com/cgi-bin/...ate=California

http://californialicense.com/

http://www.revei.com/index.html

[Nick Gromicko]

They'll be hurtin just like all these http://www.tennessee.gov/commerce/bo...cation_ce.html

Tell a 20 year veteran real estate in California that she needs CE and see if she doesn't shop for an inexpensive online option.

InterNACHI and NACHI.TV combined form a wreckin' machine.