The story below from a school teacher client of mine, whilst ending happily, gives ample reason for a long-overdue legal prohibition on agents’ referring buyers to building inspectors, mortgage brokers, solicitors and the like.
"A recent experience with building inspectors and a real estate salesman may serve as a warning to others looking to purchase a home. My experience was enough to turn a normally reasonable person into someone with noticeable traits of paranoia.
It all started when my partner and I visited a real estate agency as part of our search for a new home. The salesman we dealt with soon showed us a tenanted property – which he happened to own himself. The house, although thirty years old, was a log cabin with beautiful timber cathedral ceilings, it had a touch of class.
The seller/salesman negotiated a sale price with us and, while we were signing the contract, helpfully gave us a card (from many others in his office) for a building (and pest) inspector. He suggested that this fellow was thorough, but cheaper than the rest. My partner and I were thankful for this advice, and happily engaged the recommended inspector.
(Heed my warning. Do not employ building inspectors recommended by real estate agents! Those agents clearly prefer buyers to use inspectors who won’t tell tales out of class?) Anyhow, the recommended inspector made his inspection and sent us his report.
To all intents and purposes the house seemed, according to the report, in order with only ‘minor’ repairs to be made. I later arranged with the tenant to show my daughter through the house.
A higher power was looking after me that day because only the failure of the tenant to appear on time allowed us to discover that town water was not actually connected to the house. We didn’t need to go snooping while we waited for the tenant, as the hose from one of two (only) town water taps was visibly filling the underground water tanks.
Childhood images of the robot from the old TV series ‘Lost in Space’ flashed before my mind as they often do when caution is required: “Warning! Warning!”
What else could be amiss here? We went back to re-read the inspection report.
A more critical examination showed that the (lack of) water connection wasn’t even mentioned. As well, the report made an awful lot of very general statements. The word ‘some’ seemed to jump out all over the many pages. As well, the termite report stated clearly over and over that there was no guarantee that the little fellows weren’t munching away secretly. An urgent call to the inspector was warranted.
He was very defensive, but agreed that he could not guarantee there weren’t any termites. We would need an ‘intrusive’ report for that! No, he didn’t have a photo-imaging camera (the seller/salesman had told my partner that this inspector had a camera which registered the heat in the walls, a good indicator of termite activity), and no, he wasn’t allowed to poke or prod anything.
So what had he done? Apparently, he had just walked around the property for half an hour and had a ‘look’. He was, he said, not legally allowed to lift or move anything.
The big question still remained: Were there termites?
I flicked through the phone book and noted a full page advert headed ‘Termites’. I rang the number. This inspector had a photo imaging camera and a termite sniffer dog. And would charge only forty dollars more. I wished we had known about this fellow and his services beforehand.
The seller/salesman was on holidays so ringing him did not go down well, but I did manage to organise another inspection. I might have been imagining things but I sensed fear in his voice. Later the first inspector told me the seller/salesman had literally ‘chewed his ear off’.
On the day of the second inspection the boys truly arrived.
Besides the two men from the new inspection company, my partner was there with me to take notes and to see for himself what needed doing. The seller/salesman sent along his mate, also a real estate agent, to balance the picture. The new inspectors went through the place with a fine tooth comb. We were shown among other things damp problems, rotting wood, broken tiles, leaks and a roof that had never been attached properly. Apparently there are rules for these things. Sure everything was fixable, but at what cost?
Finally, I felt confident in these men and their report!
So to other home-buyers, I make a few suggestions:
1. Don’t use any building or pest inspector recommended by the selling agency.
2. Be personally at the property on the day of the inspection.
3. Make sure you get a descriptive report, one that tells you where and how much damage you have to fix.
Were there termites? Well, a visual report can’t tell you with any guarantee. An Intrusive might not find favour with an owner, particularly when the property is tenanted. I felt at the end of this exercise that I would still need to pay for a termite barrier, just in case! So we instructed our solicitor (Tim O’Dwyer, of course) to cancel the contract on the basis that we were not satisfied with the building and pest inspection reports we had obtained. Fortunately, the purchase contract contained a condition giving us this right.
Nevertheless, unbeknownst to my solicitor, I got in touch behind the scenes with the seller/salesman and cheekily told him we might consider reviving the contract if he knocked $20,000 off the price. He screamed blue murder, but eventually agreed. Apparently, he and his wife were building a new home, needed the money from this sale and did not want to lose us as buyers."
OPINION
