Hi everyone
I need some advice. I had a call today from a perspective client who is renting a house. He wants me to come out and perform an inspection on the house because he says his landlord wont fix anything. He said he wanted to get an inspection so he could take the report to the landlord to force him to fix whatever problems he has. What are the legal ramifications of doing this inspection ?
Jeff Prince
Safe At home Inspections,Inc.
Darien,Il
Just do it. It’s an inspection. As long as the current tenant invited you, you should not have any problems. After all you are only evaluating and dicumenting the durrent conditions of the property.
Smart man I have done a couple .
One where the person knew his land lord was going to go after him for many things .
He had my inspection and pictures .
Received the dreaded letter and told the land lord he had a professional Home inspection done at move out and was prepaired to see him in court .
End of story.
Told me the inspection was the best money ever spent.
… Cookie
Hi Jeffrey,
Just make sure that the tenant knows that the landlord is under no obligation to fix what you find.
That all depends on the verbage in the lease. Back in my renting days I had a clause that read if the AC is out that the landlord is required to have an A/C technician come out within 8 hrs of notification or “tenant” will seek out one and demand reimbursement.
I would tell my client to read through the renters agreement carefully and then accompany it with the ins. report stating legal action if certain repairs are not resolved
Richard,
If it was that black and white then I doubt that there would be a need for an inspector.
In Florida I would never let a tenant dictate to me about the terms. If you don’t like my terms then live somewhere else is the motto in this state.
It have done this type of inspection before. I always advise the client to contact the AHJ and look for any code violations. That always gets the attention of the landlord.
While doing an inspection for a renter may be a good idea I would defer to the AHJ. There is more here than meets the eye. In my other career in the fire service, there were countless times when our engine company, we did NFPA 101 Life Safety commercial inspections as one of our weekly chores, was asked by the renter to “inspect” their rental property. We would do an inspection and then told her to have the full time inspector come out if the landlord did not improve the property. The AHJ has the authority to demand repairs if codes are violated and consequences if the repairs are not made in a required time. Our inspection is merely advisory at best and may make the problem even worse.
I would think a rental inspection would be great when the renter is looking at the property or in the first week of possession.
Just my 2 cents.
Hi to all,
In many jurisdictions rental property is licensed by the city, county or state, and is required to meet certain minium standards, I know in Ma the city or county board of health is the AHJ for their “safe and sanitary” housing regulations.
Here’s a link to the overview of those standards: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/cis/cissfsn/sfsnidx.htm#summary
I agree with the others, a renter having the property inspected either prior to or immediately after moving in would save a lot of money and agravation at the end of the lease, this is common for commercial property.
Regards
Gerry
I have done renter inspections so the renter had documentation of the status of the property when they moved in. It made things easier when they moved out. I had to go to court 1 time for a renter that the home owner said that he damaged the walls. It was not too bad a gig. I got $300 for my 20 minutes on the stand. Renter won also.