The Difference with Contractors and Home Inspectors
One of the mistakes that any home seller or buyer can make is not having a professional home inspector do the home inspection. By assuming that such services can be provided by anyone particularly contractors is certainly considered to be far from the truth.
Bear in mind that a contractor possesses skills in home building and construction and not in finding out defects, deterioration or other possible damages inside the home.
Simply put, if you let a contractor do a home inspection it is likely that a walk-through inspection will only be done and a thorough examination of the property will not be completed.
Obviously, a thorough home inspection conducted by a professional home inspector will be better in more ways than one. Some of the things that will be checked include: removal of break panel covers, testing the polarity of outlets as well as grounding, verification of GFCI compliance, evaluation of plumbing drains, fixtures and valves, checking of the air conditioning and heating systems and inspection or fireplaces and built-in home appliances.
An experienced home inspector will know the importance of walking on the roof, traversing the attic, belly-crawling to check foundation and evaluating safety features including smoke alarms, garage firewalls, water heaters and chimneys.
On the other hand, a contractor might simply notice things in passing during the walk-through inspection. Discovery processes developed by qualified home inspectors since the 70s will certainly not be used.
If you choose a contractor, you will certainly fail to benefit from the expertise of a professional home inspector. In addition, you are denying the right to full disclosure of defects. This could spell liability on the part of the seller.
In order to avoid such inconvenience and risks, make sure that you hire a qualified home inspector. If the buyer failed to heed the recommendation based on the home inspection report, you will be able to justify the defects after escrow has been made.
