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No Guarantees
Since we opened our doors in 1978, Carson, Dunlop and Associates has taken a very liberal approach with clients who are unhappy with our service. But over the last few years, we have seen a steady shift in clients' expectations. Their demands are higher, which is fine, but the number of clients with unrealistic expectations has grown from maybe one in a thousand to one in fifty. These
are the people who renegotiate their house based
on the inspection results; then anything, we mean
anything,
that goes wrong after they move in is Carson Dunlop's fault.
They argue that they could have renegotiated for
more had they been aware of the problem or perceived
problem. "Had you told me, I would have had the vendor fix it." These
include: a missing latch on a screen door, missing
caulking around a window, and a broken electrical
outlet behind the china cabinet.
All cost less than $100 but clients feel we should
have found them. They would like us to pay. On the other end of the spectrum are the clients who bought an older home with original, but serviceable windows. They have called four window contractors and guess what? All four say they need new windows. How could Carson, Dunlop miss this $9,000 problem? Still others find hidden problems that they readily admit the vendor concealed but we should have caught. Why else would they put down new carpet? Didn't the fresh paint make you suspicious? You should have predicted they were hiding something. Last
week, a client asked us to pay $22,000 to dig
up around his house to waterproof it and add drainage tile.
His basement is not wet but feels damp. Three waterproofing
contractors have all said to dig. We are convinced
that the
quality of our
inspections has not slipped. We firmly believe that
this is a shift in customer expectations and
philosophies. We had a choice
to make. We could take a very heavy handed approach
to our inspections. This would include coming
down very hard on every potential problem
and writing "cover yourself" reports. We could never offer "most likely" scenarios, only "worst possible case" predictions,
if we offered any predictions at all. During the course of a home inspection,
we are offering more than just facts. We are offering
a professional opinion. If we offered just the
facts, it would go like this: "The furnace is working today. (We have no opinions as to how old it is or how long it might last, or what your options are when it comes time to replace it, or what a new one might cost.)" or "The basement is dry today. ("We have no opinion as to what it will be like in the spring, or what minor improvements you should make to avoid a future problem)." Our
opinions will sometimes be wrong because we don't
have all the pieces of the puzzle. Often, some
of the pieces are concealed.
If we got to tear things apart, we would sometimes
come to different conclusions. Other times, our
opinion simply varies from another
expert or contractor. Instead of writing heavy handed
or no opinion reports, we decided to keep our reports as even handed as possible and changed our contract. This contract is intended to protect us against the unreasonable client. Unrealistic clients don't view our report as a professional opinion. They view it as an insurance policy with a zero deductible and no annual renewal costs. To allow us to continue to provide good quality, even handed reports to the forty-nine out of fifty people who deserve them, we have been forced to write a contract that makes our client know, in no uncertain terms, that the inspection is an opinion and not a warranty or guarantee. Our colleagues south of the border have been warning us for years that this would happen. We hate to admit it, but they are finally right.
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