If like me you perform home inspections in various area, and also like me you go above and beyond the Standards of Practice you might also opt for trying to obtain information about Building Permits issued on the properties being inspected.
Recently a worrying trend has been occurring. Municipal Councils have started refusing to giving any information out about Building permits citing the Privacy Act (An Act to extend the present laws of Canada that protect the privacy of individuals and that provide individuals with a right of access to Personal Information about themselves) or PIPEDA (Protection of Personal Information in the private sector) depending which takes their fancy.
Now I am all for protecting the privacy of the individual, but refusing to give details to a bona-fide professional trying to identify if the home they are inspecting, which has obviously had modifications in the past has been modified in compliance with the law is in my opinion nuts.
Having spent 8 months last year working with the Ministry of Consumer Services helping other professionally minded Inspectors and other peer groups ways in which we can bring in ways to make Home Inspectors more professional, I find government bodies invoking other regulatory Acts incorrectly to thwart our attempts to do the best for our clients more than mildly annoying.
I am not asking the Building departments to divulge who (personal information) applied for the permits, or who (personal information) may have inspected the work or who (personal information) completed the work. All I’m asking for is “Have any Permits been issued on this property, and if so for what purpose and when?”
Depending upon the answer I can then inform the client that permits have/have not been issued and therefore it is likely/unlikely the work has been properly inspected by the relevant authorities and may/not be a professionally completed job.
Both the Privacy Act (applies to Government) and PIPEDA (applies everywhere else) are regulatory acts to protect the privacy of an individual. They are both being used to allow Municipal and Local governments hide information without which home Buyers could be held accountable for errors made by previous owners.
As a result of this maybe I should start to include in my reports a standard clause which would state
***“As a professional inspector I attempted to identify if any prior renovations of the property have been carried out in accordance with the building regulations, but because of the incorrect application of Privacy Regulations by the [Insert jurisdiction here] I was unable to ascertain this information. If in the future a Jurisdiction Building inspection identifies work has been performed without a permit and a demand is made on you by the jurisdiction that creates financial or other strain you may find you have grounds to sue them for their refusal to give your chosen Home Inspector access to information that could have fully disclosed an issue which they chose, using misused regulations, to help cover up”
Of course the local jurisdiction will say that under the Municipal Freedom of Information Act I could apply for the information about the permits for a $5 fee plus search time costs, have to wait up to 30 days for the results AND have to have the written permission of the current owner before they would process the request.
I detest the fact that the oft quoted “most expensive purchase of anyone’s life” is subject to Caveat Emptor (buyer beware) rather than Caveat Venditor (full disclosure by the seller). Add to that the constant bombardment in the press of claims Home Inspectors not professional. We are then subject to calls from many places including Realtors, Regulators and “Self-proclaimed expert” media hosts that our profession should be regulated to make us better at our jobs. But really irks me more than anything is that for those of us that try to be a cut above the rest we are thwarted at every turn by the very people that are constantly crying foul.