We recently had a leak in our ceiling and this has turned into a month long ordeal. Found the water line after a storm, called our insurance company to file a claim and we thought it was pretty simple. Well it turns out that it is not simple at all. Our adjuster sent a company out to open the space to dry it out and two days later he came with a roofer to do the inspection. We had already been up on the roof to see if there were missing shingles or anything obvious we could fix before we even called our insurance. The adjuster said that we really should have had a home inspection done. ??? I told him that we did and there were three of us present for it- me, our agent and the sellers agent. He said that we should definitely contact them because there are some major defects in our roof. I was shocked and actually a little angry after hearing their comments as to the condition of the roof. The inspector did go onto the two portions that they said had the most problems. There are two skylights, one had multiple layers of tar around it and the other had some tar in several locations. The even bigger issue is that there is no flashing where the roof meets two walls and on another there is rubber flashing that does not extend the entire length of the roof. I had no idea of any of this. Our inspector has it in our report that the roof is in the second third of its life expectancy and that the flashing should be replaced when reroofing- but if the roof is in the second third of its life… it would appear according to the report that this is not a concern for right now. Right!!! There are blocks that the inspector checked for the components and the box for presence of tar is not checked, but there was multiple places with tar present and there is nothing in the report about it. One portion of the roof (over our screened porch) has different shingles and this was not noted either and this is the area with no flashing and caulk in the areas where flashing should be.
I am beyond disappointed and this is going to cost us a lot of money because our inspector failed to give us details of defects that were clear, in clear view and not normal parts of a roof- there should never be tar in place of flashing… we have learned so much about roofing with 3 roofers coming to our house.
The inspector came back with her boss and they took the old tar off the skylights and replaced it, to protect our house from an incoming storm- they spent over 5 hours at our house and a trip to Lowe’s for supplies. In the end, the owner offered to pay to replace the leaky skylight but would not address the other issues- stating that when the house was built it was standard. ??? That would be a nice answer if I had bought the house 16 years ago when it was built, but since this is 2015 and I paid for an inspection- I want to know the defects and what to address with the sellers.
I am angry that the owner is making this sound like I am making this sound worse than it is and that we received a true visual report at the time the inspection was performed. This is not true unless someone came after the inspection and stole the flashing, put tar on the skylight and took all the grit off the shingles. How is this not negligence? The owner said they are willing to pay for a skylight and that is it but a roofer won’t come anywhere near this roof because there are so many problems with it- two of them said that they cannot put their reputation on the line and risk it to put a bandaid on something that is unserviceable. Our roof is unserviceable and the inspector refuses to provide the pictures she took at our original inspection- that show the condition of the roof.
The owner thinks that by saying let’s take it to arbitration, he will scare me off or something. I have many professionals that have said the exact same thing about the condition of this roof and it is not a gray area, it is cut and dry- it needs to be replaced.
I asked the owner, a certified master inspector- if you were up on a roof doing an inspection would you not mention the tar on the skylights and missing flashing? He had no response. I asked again, if this is your standard and your inspector did the right thing, you are telling me that you have never reported and would not report this to a client? He said he did not have to tell me what he puts in reports.
That was enough for me. Then he said let’s have an arbitrator find out.
I have no idea why they would not just admit the mistake, take care of their customer and make it right. I would respect a business more for admitting it than to treat us like this. It is not acceptable.