Is your home inspector qualified?

Anyone can say he or she is a home inspector, but consumers have the option of hiring one who has been trained and tested.

Alan Carson says, “We believe you need a good, diverse broad background to be a home inspector.” Carson is vice-president of Carson Dunlop Inspections. “It’s like a doctor who’s a general practitioner. You have to know all about the body. And when you see a problem you recommend a specialist. In home inspection, if someone works in one trade how will they know about others?”

Carson has written home inspection books for people who want to learn about the nuts and bolts of a house. He has also helped develop the home inspector course at Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology that’s also offered at 15 other Ontario Community Colleges.

Guy Battaglini, co-ordinator of Humber College’s home inspectors course, says within the past 10 years a lot of people have discovered they have purchased homes based on unqualified people calling themselves home inspectors. He adds that they likely had no formal education or training to understand the different systems that comprise a home.

“In some cases, it might have resulted in buyers being upset because it cost them an additional $20,000 or $30,000 in further repairs,” he says.

Many people get inspections done when they buy older homes, but having new homes inspected is increasingly common. Another growing trend among sellers is having an inspection done before putting the house on the market.

“We’ve seen that trend over the past five years and roughly 25 per cent of our inspection work is for sellers,” Carson says. “We call them pre-listing inspections.”

There are many advantages to this, he adds, for the buyer and the seller.

See story in the Toronto Star »