What else do members want from InterNACHI? Post your suggestions.

No one hires a home inspector so that they can find out if their dishwasher was recalled. No one buys a Lamborghini to get the 6-CD changer. In other words, it doesn’t cause a consumer to choose you.

Furthermore, it likely pisses off agents who would never admit that they aren’t too happy with their home inspector going outside his/her Standards of Practice and checking stuff for recalls or checking for missing building permits or checking for local crime statistics. It’s just not our job and agents don’t want you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. I was a top-producing agent for years, I have 10,000 friends who are agents, I know how agents think. For every agent who compliments you for checking something that you weren’t hired to check (those are the agents you hear from), there are 25 agents who are quietly thinking: “I’ll never recommend him again.”

Furthermore, on behalf of your client you have breached your client’s sales agreement by performing a recall check without the seller’s permission. Seller’s look at multiple offers and often accept an offer based on what inspections are being asked to have performed. Often a buyer will waive all inspections to try to enhance his/her offer. Anyway, the seller (the OWNER of the home and the appliances) has to agree to allow your client to perform a home inspection, or a septic inspection, or a mold inspection or whatever. If your client doesn’t have permission within the sales agreement to do those inspections, then you can’t do them. You have no right to check for recalls on appliances without the owner of those appliances granting you permission. Sales agreements have inspection riders for a reason. They are part of a legal contract. That legal contract indirectly gives you permission to come to the house and inspect that which the parties to the agreement have agreed you’ll inspect. If you unilaterally start checking appliances for recalls or sticking your nose into a septic tank or mowing the lawn for that matter… you are way out of line. The reason InterNACHI doesn’t release its own Recall Check, isn’t because we are technically unable. We don’t release our own Recall Check because you’ll use it.

If word gets out that our system is to allow non-members to use our logos without any risk and that we send them a warning before we file a lawsuit for damages, the effect of that will cause more non-members to steal from us. Our goal is to reduce theft of our intellectual property. Our system of financially obliterating a few thieves of year with lawsuits provides a scarier deterrent than Cease and Desist warnings which are nothing more than letters.

I’m not going to let personality or attacks on me cause me to do harm to my own members. If Adolf Hitler is offering to pay some bills for some members to save them money… I’m happy for those members.

You said in another thread that Mark Cohen said you will send 1 letter, and if that does not work you will then Obliterate them, take their businesses, their homes etc… Is that still the system?

Jim

The Ethics Committee only made recommendations that the directors and legal staff of InterNACHI mostly followed. Every now and then we consider the recommendations, but then adopt a different course of action. This protects the committee from liability and puts the decision to take whatever action we take on us. The system works.

No. We tried it and it failed. Mark and I went back to my system of zero warning. If word gets out that we warn everyone with no consequences, the theft of our intellectual property will increase.

OK that’s wrong, but your choice. Anyway when there is a clear violator how should it get reported ? and to who

Thanks

You can email me. But maybe we’ll do nothing about it immediately. In a battle, you don’t attack on all fronts. You look for the opportunities where you have the most superiority over your enemy, take that hill, then reassess the battlefield looking for your next best opportunity to exploit your advantage over the opponent.

Remember, the idea isn’t to stop everyone who is stealing our I.P. in exchange for increasing the number of those who attempt to steal. That’s going forward one step for every two steps backwards. The idea is to reduce the number of those who try in the first place by creating a risk to thieves of financial Armageddon.

Of the RE Agents I asked when this topic came up, I think every one I asked had a response similar to what you just said (so I stopped asking), and the warranty idea has always been troubling IMO as folks within the RE transaction coordinate this and I was admonished of duplicate coverage etc… However, and nonetheless, I thinks it’s wise to ask those you do business with for feedback about how you are doing, products/offerings etc. Feedback about an offering via a message board is helpful, but finding out whether something is really wanted in your market is a good idea, as in my experience, it’s hard to change your service etc once people are used to it.

Edit - However, I’ve not asked too many (busy summer/fall) about the BuyBack, what was your response in SoCal of such?

Tim Spargo writes:

Yep. Most inspectors think that checking for recalls is helping their business because they hear from the 1 in 25 agents who likes it. The other 24 aren’t going to admit why they don’t. In business… I play the odds. What you did correctly Tim, was you figured out the odds.

Tim also asks:

As you can probably imagine, I’ve already surveyed agents and so I know what the odds are regarding InterNACHI’s “We’ll Buy Your Home Back” Guarantee. I trust your survey will produce similar, very positive results. The Buy Back program is really a better sales tool for real estate agents than it is for inspectors.

Is there anything else that you’d like from your InterNACHI membership?

Nick, I give up arguing with you about this as the reason you say what you say is to protect your Homie Nathan, that is obvious. Nothing anyone can say will change that., (extremely sad but true)

I do want to say that your reasoning you just posted only shows your lack of experience in the DMCA world of stolen content. I have years of experience in this field and work with the biggest DMCA companies that have hundreds of thousands of stolen images and other copyrighted materials removed from the net. Of course some ended up in court and ended up with huge settlements and the Obviation of the offenders like you said you like also. But a boatload more offenders quit immediately with the correct cease and desist.

In the case of stolen Nachi logos it is even more important to take down a quantity of thieves then wait for just a few offenders. The reasoning is that when a stolen Nachi logo (cmi or any other) get seen by the pubic agents, clients, anyone for that matter it can negative affect on all Real Nachi members if the thief is a bozo.

I highly doubt any Nachi member wants to be associated with some idiot thief who screws up inspections, speaks bad about our industry, or does anything for that matter that could be frowned upon and cause Nachi members and the association to all look like bunions.

Jim

Okay just prosecute them all, except the very few. Even some of the nonmembers you contacted basically said screw NACHI, and nothing was done.

An ESOP Committee that is elected by the Certified Members of InterNACHI.

Tim Spargo writes: Quote:
Of the RE Agents I asked when this topic came up, I think every one I asked had a response similar to what you just said

Nick Gromicko
writes: Quote:
Yep. Most inspectors think that checking for recalls is helping their business because they hear from the 1 in 25 agents who likes it. The other 24 aren’t going to admit why they don’t. In business… I play the odds. What you did correctly Tim, was you figured out the odds.


OK Nick, for those posts I am standing up giving you a Huge round of applause, and then a standing ovation and encore !!!

We finally agree…

Jim

How about an Ethics Committee that is elected by the Certified Members of InterNACHI.

Lets see,

there is a new local chapter.
I can obtain CEU credits as needed.
I can correspond on a powerful message board.
I can utilize all that is available and then some.

How about having a member win a trip to the corporate office for a day?

Since when did doing anything in this business, including checking for recalls, become a concern in regards to ensuring the agent gets to the closing table?
I pull permits because I have to with insurance forms.
So at the end of the day, its not about providing the client with above and beyond service, its about “playing the odds”.
I understand now.
Go above the SOP, and you can piss off agents… OK got it!
Since this post is requesting new things, how about an education course on how to properly stroke the agents for more referrals? I bet the states would approve that one in a heart beat.

I honestly do not see the point if the Ethics Commitee is going to be ignored when Nick does not agree. From what Nick is saying he wants the Ethics Commitee to be a kangroo court.