7 traits of a trustworthy home inspection company
When searching for the right home, no challenge is as nerve-wracking or as much of a potential deal-breaker as a house inspection. However, you need an inspection company you can rely on to ensure that you have received all the pertinent knowledge! If there’s no trust between you and those doing the inspection for you, then you can never fully be confident in the information they have offered you. To ensure their trustworthiness, you will have to put in some work! You will need to ask them for references to old customers and then reach out to those people. However, we can help you by providing you with info on what you should be asking them about! Here are the 7 traits of a trustworthy home inspection company so that you can find the best partners possible for your house-searching efforts.
They should be experienced
This one is actually the easiest of the 7 traits of a trustworthy home inspection company to be on the lookout for. You can find most of the relevant info on the internet. Things such as how long the company has been operating, reviews, and similar. Of course, you should not allow only the online reviews to color your view of the home inspection company! They can be faked with enough effort. Still, if they have been up and running for a long time, chances are they are doing something right. At the very least, they will be able to spot more than just the common things that fail a home inspection.
They should have the necessary licenses and credentials
You should never work with a house inspection company that’s not licensed and doesn’t provide the proper credentials. Experts from a well-known moving company, Heart Moving NYC, warn that they have often encountered stories about scammers over the years. And almost every single time, what such inspection companies had in common was a lack of official license. Even if a company is just starting, it should be capable of obtaining one. And losing the money you used to hire them only to not have them show up is the least that could happen! Much worse would be having them ‘perform an inspection’ only to find out they passed an utterly run-down house that just looks good on the surface. That would set you back to the point that you might be better off just buying a new home altogether.
They should be reliable
It will be a bit trickier to check for reliability. So, the only way you can tell is by talking with their previous customers. You only need to ask them if there were any significant issues that they had failed to notify the house buyer of. The house inspection company needs to, at the very least, be able to reliably spot the most damaging and common problems found during a home inspection! More importantly, they also need to inform their customers if such issues are spotted. Of course, you can never know if the company had decided to overlook something on purpose. But you can at least confirm whether the frequency of undetected issues cropping up after their inspections is high.
They should be punctual
Buying a house is often hectic. Trying to make the right bid, checking different properties, and figuring out the financial viability of each purchase. That is why you need to have the information a house inspection affords you as quickly as possible. Of course, pushing for things to happen faster is impossible. House inspection companies are often swamped with work. But they should, at the very least, be able to keep to the deadlines they had agreed to! Otherwise, all your plans might be thrown off, and delays can easily lead to someone else purchasing the property. So, it is still essential to check up on the company’s punctuality! Even if it is not as crucial as some of the other 7 traits of a trustworthy home inspection company.
They should work diligently
Some people might equate diligence with punctuality. However, what we have in mind is somewhat different. What we are talking about is the diligence a house inspection company is due to their employer. Does the company listen to the requests of people who hire them? Do they take into account the client’s desire for speed and efficiency? Or, when they request it, for a slower and more detailed inspection? You need to know if they are willing to work closely with their customers and adapt to their needs. Or if they would simply rush through the job with no regard for your wishes.
They should be good at communicating
This is one of the traits of a trustworthy home inspection company that refers to its ability to pass on the findings to clients. You want to know exactly what state your potential future home is in, right? And even if you have taken the time to learn how to inspect your new home before moving in and how to scan everything prior to settling in, you’ll still want to hear the opinion of experts in a concise, easy-to-understand way. Even if a house inspector does an outstanding and detailed job of looking over the house, it won’t matter if you don’t understand a thing they are trying to tell you!
They should be excellent at writing reports
If the previous entry on our list of traits of a trustworthy home inspection company concerned client-company communication, then this one deals with the quality of their work that other companies will rely on! Namely, any of the construction or cost evaluation companies you approach. To give a cost estimate, they will need to primarily rely on the report written by the house inspection company. If you want to assess the fixup costs when buying a fixer-upper, for example, this is what you will be counting on. With a well-written report, this will be a breeze. On the other hand, a sloppy report can cause severe delays or false cost predictions.
Reminder to be careful
As we have mentioned at the start, the only way to confirm whether a company has the traits of a trustworthy home inspection company is to ask them for references and contact previous customers. However, do be warned this is not foolproof! Look out for repeating phrases when talking to the people they referenced you to. If their answers seem like they are coming off of an identical answer sheet, then you might be facing a scam!
Author bio:
Jackson Philips has cooperated closely with both real estate agents and house inspection companies while working as a moving company employee. He now uses this experience to write helpful blog posts concerning what he has learned.
Photos used:
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