In general, the Inspector’s report is expected to focus on all major system parts (furnace, foundation, electrical, plumbing, roof, and so forth) and report any that [1] have major defects,  [2] create a safety issue, or that [3] make the house not habitable.

The notion that homebuyers’ should ask for a home inspection is relatively new—it was not until the 1990’s that home inspections started to become a routine part of the home buying process. Consequently, in the early stages of the profession, there was little regulation to control the profession and anyone could hang up his or her shingle and start working as a Home Inspector.

Initially the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI), established in 1976 and now with 5000 members, established its own form of regulation by establishing a Standards of Practice, minimum experience and training, qualifying test, and ongoing Continuing Education (CE) requirements as requirements for admission. The National Association of Home Inspectors (NAHI) was established in 1987. With almost 1000 members, NAHI has similar requirements for admission as a member. For both associations, the critical feature are the Standards of Practice that define the required scope of a home inspection. Because membership in either organization can be a good marketing tool, conformance with the Standards of Practice is the cornerstone of self-regulation.

The downside of self-regulation is that there are no enforcement powers. A member who is sanctioned can simply leave the organization and continue to practice. For that reason, 22 states have State Regulatory bodies that govern Home Inspectors.* Of these 22, ten states have formal licensing procedures and controls very similar to ASHI and NAHI. These State Licensing Authorities have established Standards of Practice based upon those developed by ASHI and NAHI. They also established minimum experience credentials, licensing exams, and yearly Continuing Education. Importantly, state-regulating bodies can rescind a Home Inspector’s license for major infractions. Practicing without a license is grounds for civil and/or criminal action. Both forms of regulation have brought a fair amount of uniformity and relatively high levels of professionalism to the industry.

All this is not to say that a Home Inspector’s report is always happily received. Neither home sellers nor real estate agents appreciate it if negative findings in the report impede a closing. Nonetheless, the vast majority of real estate agents understand that if something major is broke that it has to be reported. On the other hand, some agents will not recommend any Home Inspector who finds any problems; these agents do a disservice to homebuyers who are thus prevented from have an objective and comprehensive inspection performed. At the other end of the extreme are inspectors who tend to become over-zealous in their homebuyers’ advocacy role. Real Estate agents rightfully object when (for example) warped floorboards are made to sound like the leaning tower of Pizza in the report or when that same zealous Inspector cites code for a system element that was installed before the code was written. Nonetheless, in the majority of instances, common sense and the application of the applicable Standards of Practice generally result in a middle ground that fairly satisfies all parties concerned.

Typically, the way to achieve this middle ground is to perceive a house as an organic system. The newer it is, the better condition its constituent parts. The older it gets, the more those parts start to show signs of age (sounds like your doctor talking doesn’t it?). A house does age, parts do wear out and eventually need replacing. So it stands to reason that age is factored into the price of home—the older a home, the lower the price relative to a new house with the same floor plan and square footage. This relativity simply means that in a new house, the buyer has the reasonable right to expect near perfection, while in a 20-year old house, the same reasonable buyer (and reasonable home inspector) will not give too much importance to squeaking floors or minor paint flaking or other such signs of aging.

So when a home inspector says, "the roof is nearing the end of its useful life", he is not saying the "sky is falling, the sky is falling". He’s saying, "you are buying an older house, budget for a roof replacement in the next few years."  He is not saying to the buyer, "use this finding to start bargaining with the seller."  Misunderstandings over such items are what generally create some understandable ill will. Conversely, if the Inspector reports that the furnace has failed, or that the roof leaks, or that there are aluminum branch circuits, then major findings do exist that deserve corrective attention regardless of the age of the house. In this regard, unless they knew about it beforehand, buyers have the right to expect that all such deficiencies will be corrected at the sellers cost, or that some other satisfactory compromise can be reached, before closing. In sum, the wise Inspector makes sure that all parties understand the difference between system failure and maintenance issues—one legitimately can delay closing (or unfortunately kill the deal), while the other should not be reported in such a way that it unnecessarily impedes closing.

Of course not everything is always black or white Often the Inspector will be confronted by something that requires further analysis by a specialist. So, it may seem expensive to pay an inspector $200 or $300 to simply open a few windows and turn the thermostat up and down (we actually do more than that), only to have him tell you that you need a specialist. But remember, the Home Inspector is a generalist who, for a modest fee, is qualified to tell you, "yep, the roof, foundation, plumbing, electrical system are working, don’t appear to have major problems, so you don’t need to spend bunches of bucks having those systems checked by a specialist. But, you do need to spend another $100 to have a gas furnace guy come out and check out the soot and scorch marks around the flame roll-out shield."  The odds are that the furnace guy will find that the problem is simply tuning, and will do so for that $100 fee. Furnace tuning is something that you want to do every year or two or three anyway and pays for itself through improved fuel use. On the other hand, the furnace specialist may find that back drafting and/or a cracked heat exchanger—both potentially lethal problems--cause the flame rollout. In other words, your Home Inspector is an inexpensive first line of defense trained to perform house triage by defining issues--"no big deal, symptom of age," or "hmmm, better see a specialist on that one."

In sum, your Home Inspector provides an important physical exam of a high cost purchase at a very low price.

Related topics: Sample Standards of Practice for Home Inspectors

*Licensing States: North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Kentucky

*Registration or Certification States: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, Tennessee, Wisconsin

About the author: John C. Williams operates his business, WNC.RE.Source, Inc. in the Asheville, NC area of western North Carolina. John is a licensed Appraiser, Home Inspector, Real Estate Broker, and General contractor who can be reached at 828.628.2727 or 2727@home.com