I regret using this company, stay away!
I used this company for a pre-listing home inspection. This was a complete nightmare. Sheila was the inspector. She came on a weekend and before the inspection even started she was complaining about working on the weekend. She then said you might not like what she is going to write in the report and that she is currently being sued. This is before she even started the inspection. She also mentioned she would only be reporting major issues.
As we expected, the report came back with every little issue, many of which were under $100 to fix, some even no cost and took 1 minute to fix. She included pictures of all these minor issues as well. There was very little positive items in the report. The report was 39 pages long and didn't even include a summary. They wanted an additional $50 for a 1 page summary. Most of the report is unrelated to the actual inspection of your house. They argued that a pre-listing inspection report is a full list of issues wrong with the house. Several times I had to tell them that this report is about describing the current state of the house which includes both positives and negatives. They stated a few times in the report to replace items which they never even tested. They also had inaccurate items listed.
After several days of emails, the Director ended up making some changes to the report and providing the 1 page summary for free. We were happy with the 1 page summary report as it explained what the detailed report should have. I don't think they understand that a summary report is supposed to summarize the full report. You basically have to pay extra to get something positive written in the report. They were also supposed to provide what is called a Home Verified report but they never did.
I would avoid this company. Maybe they have better inspectors and I just got the worst one. Sheila was completely unprofessional and I don't think she is qualified. She was very quick to report anything negative and she didn't take the time to ask questions or understand what she was writing about. She mentioned that our basement reno was poorly done because there was no access to the main shutoff water valve. I had to speak to her on the phone that there was a main shutoff water valve in the basement in an access panel. Very easy to find. She clearly didn't look. She didn't even bring a pen and paper. She used her cellphone to take notes. She also never replied to my emails. The report is clearly a copy and pasting from other reports she has done. She also included pictures that wasn't even my house and wrongly identified parts of the house in her report.
I have seen several other companies that provide a much more reader-friendly report, that is less than 10 pages long.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $519.80
- Company Response
Dear Reviewer from Toronto:
I am sorry you had a negative experience with our company especially because we spent a considerable amount of time on the phone and through email trying to help get you what you were looking for. We did revise the report a number of times at no additional cost to you, to change wording as per your multiple requests and added information when you made improvements after the inspection took place.We also included an additional summary provided at no cost as a courtesy. We did however have many discussions about removing items from the report, which we declined to do. As we explained this would be unethical and unprofessional and could pose a huge liability to both you and us should a buyer rely on inaccurate information to make their purchase decision.We were surprised to see this review, since we have a email from you thanking us for our speedy assistance.
It may be helpful to clarify a few points. It's great that we were able to provide our professional consulting service on a weekend. Many consultants are strictly Monday to Friday 9 to 5. We understand that you are frustrated that we included some minor defects. We typically point out that we are going to focus on major issues. The goal of a home inspection is to identify things that would change people's mind about buying a home. However, as we indicated in our report, we will come across minor issues while looking for the big ones. Those are included in the report as well. We find that if we do not include the smaller items, some clients are dissatisfied, and feel we did not do our job. We are in an awkward spot. Sellers want us to include less detail, and buyers want us to include more. We are darned if we do and darned if we don't. As a result, we try to strike a balance and write our reports the same for everyone. That maximizes the credibility and usefulness of the reports parties. The minor items are included based on a representative sampling, and our hope is that they are communicated in proper perspective.
Home inspection reports do not typically contain positive features of houses. We leave the marketing of homes to real estate sales professionals, listing sheets, feature sheets, advertisements, etc. A home inspection is a technical evaluation of the functional components of a home. If something is working properly, we don't say anything about it. That's the nature of a home inspection report. When home inspection reports extol the virtues of houses, they are typically less credible to prospective buyers, and thus less valuable to sellers.
The report did include a summary at the beginning, titled Overview. We offer an additional one page standalone summary sheet that includes a color photo of the home. There is an additional cost for this. Many of our clients are happy to use the full report and nothing else, that is why we have the summary available to add-on, rather than assuming everyone would like the additional summary at the additional cost. This was explained when the inspection was arranged and we have it noted that the package was declined at the time of booking. It was subsequently provided to you at no cost.
The inspector is well qualified and well respected with over 10 years of experience. Your comments about our inspector onsite are a bit puzzling since you did not attend the inspection. We are also struggling to understand some of your additional comments, including the statement about photos of a different home being in the report. That's one we've never heard in more 38 years and was not mentioned at all during our interactions over several days after the inspection and report were provided to you.
As a leader in the Home Inspection industry for 38 years, and having completed thousands of Sellers inspections across the GTA for happy customers, we feel confident that our inspections provide value in their current form. Again, we are sorry that you did not have a positive experience. However, if the goal is a home inspection report that is less than 10 pages, we will probably never meet that standard.
- Charlotte Dove, Director of Operations and Client Care