VIA E-MAIL — I read Dave Yates' column "Home inspections can lead to legal tangles" (April, pg. 30). As a home inspector, I can only say how sad it is to hear someone speaking as an authority on a subject he is not. Dave Yates may be a great plumber but his column was flawed and unfair.
A column like his tends to make the public look at all home inspectors as a bunch of jerks who don't know anything and don't do their job. As a home inspector, I could write articles about the many poor plumbing jobs I have inspected in homes that supposedly were performed by licensed plumbers and make the whole plumbing profession look like bums. I could say the same for electricians' work, HVAC work and framing that I have inspected. I don't go around trying to make myself look like a know-it-all by trashing all those professions.
Dave Yates does a disservice to the public and the many good home inspectors who perform a much-needed service for the home-buying public by not mentioning that the type of work he may be finding is in the minority. And if he doesn't know it's in the minority then that only proves his lack of knowledge on the subject.
Certainly some of the problems he has run into as mentioned in his column have been due to poor inspections by poor inspectors, but is he qualified to determine what is a good inspection and what is not? Does he know what limitations and exclusions are included in any given state's requirements that are not required of a home inspection?
Maybe where he is from, the general population of home inspections is subpar from the rest of the country, but his little world does not represent everyone's experience. I am sure you could go to any state and hear plumbers talk about the problems they have had to fix that were missed by home inspectors. But, as I said, I can line up just as many home inspectors who can recount the poor plumbing work done by so-called plumbers.
Maybe the next time Dave Yates writes about home inspectors he might want to talk to one and see if the problems he finds are even in the scope of their inspection in the state they live in. Then he may want to speak to the vast majority of homebuyers who have had good experiences with their home inspectors, experiences that may have saved them significant money if they had not had one done.
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