My agent called me last night and apologized for the Inspector. Since she is representing the buyers in this transaction she is the one who hired the Buyer’s inspector. She uses the same guy all the time when representing buyers. She said that she had never seen him get so ‘intense’ and she didn’t know why. I tried really hard just to be a ‘listener’ but I made it clear that I was not going to put in an air gap. That got him going I guess
I’m going to spend some time trying to finish all my accounting and finalize the total cost. I promise to share the ugly.
Don’t rush. Today the house is still yours. Go sit on the deck and enjoy the view.
The Buyers have not even submitted their Request for Repairs yet but all of our fixes will be done by noon today. I am going to be pushing for Inspection Contingency to be released by Thursday or Friday this week.
Buyer’s deposit arrived into escrow this morning. He couldn’t get funds wired yesterday because they were on a plane back to Chicago.
Exciting!! It sounds like your closing will go quickly.
Just for the purposes of sharing…
There was another thing that the Home Inspector was making a big deal out of that I just did not understand. He looked under the house and came back up with pictures of the brand new foundation piers we installed. Our foundation piers are designed like this:
24" wide poured concrete 12" deep in the ground
12" x 12" poured concrete ‘stump’ formed above the ground
Simpson metal post base set into the concrete
4 x 6 pressure treated wood post bolted/nailed into the LCB base
Simpson metal strap connecting top of post to the original floor joist
The guy started going off about how the bottom of the wood post was not supposed to be braced to the concrete footing. I have never heard of this. Kept describing how, in an earthquake, the house might bounce up and the post needs to be free to bounce up without breaking off. (for those not familiar, my earthquake experience is that a house ‘rolls’, it doesn’t jerk up violently) This is probably one of the craziest things I have ever heard. The whole idea behind earthquake proofing your house is to have everything bolted and strapped together. This whole house was torn apart because of the Structural Engineer with a million corner straps, hold down brackets, shear walls, balloon walls, joist strapping, anchor bolting with epoxy and special inspection, special Simpson Strong Wall (just so I could get a French door in the living room). It made no sense to me and I just kept repeating ‘inspected by the City’. Once again he announced that he knew more than the City and it was his job to warn the buyers of the issues.
Obviously I came straight back from that meeting and wasted a huge amount of time researching this and calling several general contractors I know. Not one of them had ever heard of this and they always strap the bottom of posts on the piers they build. Then I researched on the Internet and found the foremost foundation company in San Diego that retrofits old Craftsman homes in our area (which this qualifies for the same age and type of foundation). They actually had all kinds of pictures on their website of their new foundation piers and they were designed exactly as we did ours.
So, I waste about 4 hours researching this and sending links to my listing agent to forward to the Buyers so they can have information for their decision.
Then, yesterday afternoon I had a brainstorm. I realized that as part of our approval for building plans I had to hire a licensed Structural Engineer. One of the things that are on our building plans was his requirement that we needed one more new post footing under a load bearing corner. So, there is an exact definition and diagram of the requirements for that post footing. I made copies of the Structural Engineer specifications and the exact page of our blueprints. I then made a copy of the City Structural Engineer review. Forwarded everything to listing agent for Buyer review. I built the new pier to exact specifications required by licensed engineer and the City. I put in 13 new foundation piers to replace the old ones to the exact same specifications. Inspected by the City.
I am really pretty pissed at this point that I had to waste so much time and effort because of this Home Inspector that came up with something that no one has ever heard of. I have to build to the exact specifications required by the City, there shall be no further discussion of this nonsense! (can you tell I’m a little peeved)
Cb, this inspector is an ass!!! Hope he never gets your agent’s business. I have a suspicion that he is also a misogynistic ass.
It sounds like your agent may need to be looking for a different inspector. Everyone should have a qualified home inspection…but the guy should know what his/her business and be rational. This guy doesn’t seem to know his business and isn’t acting rational. Maybe there is a reason he was so available on short notice…
I hope this is the end of the nonsense, CoralBrook. And I’d certainly push for the Buyer’s List ASAP.
I completely agree with BB. Was he from one of the big home inspection companies? I would report him for attempting to interfere with your contract by claiming that the structural engineering was insufficient when a structural engineer had designed the solution at issue and the construction had been signed off by the city. This guy is a big liability waiting to happen and his employer should know about it.
I am not going to take any specific action except to inform my listing agent that he is not welcome as a Buyer’s Home Inspector on any future transactions with me. She’s welcome to use him to represent buyers at someone else’s house.
I caught another issue he made a big deal about that was on my list to repair today. Sent a guy up into the attic to ‘turn over’ some roll insulation where he made a big stink that ‘any idiot can see that the paper side is supposed to be facing the living area, it’s written right on here… look at this picture’. Unfortunately I didn’t look at the photo, just wrote it down to investigate and fix. Find out that he is talking about insulation that is rising up out of our balloon shear wall into the attic to the roof (vertical insulation in the middle of the attic, not horizontal laying on the ceiling). There is no ‘living area’ on either side of this shear wall so it doesn’t matter which way the insulation faces. Below the ceiling level the insulation is between the bathroom and the master bedroom closet. The paper is facing the master bedroom closet side, but doesn’t matter because they are both ‘living spaces’ - not an exterior wall. Hard to explain to you guys in writing, but definitely was not an issue in any way. Insulation installed correctly.
Maybe the poster above who has a husband experienced in fire and safety could give me a good opinion on this.
But by now I’ve had it!!! just paid some guy to go up and fix something, time spent with him back/forth at the property poking my head into the attic, drive back to my home office and then spent another half an hour writing a full explanation to the Buyers (through my agent).
No professional should be speaking that way, to anyone.
What VH said!!! Absolutely unprofessional.
Wow, we just got a backup offer (well, kind of). My agent just received an email from an agent that did one of the showings this weekend. “If we have any issues with our escrow, please contact him immediately because his buyers are very interested and want to make an offer”.
Awesome…
This other agent needs to hang a number out there for this to be worth spending even one second thinking about.
Can you report this inspector to his licensing agency?
I’m not going to report anyone, it would just be too much stress. I am just so grateful for the opportunity to ‘vent’ with you all on our thread here and share how much fun every phase of the project really is. You think you are sold and on the downward slide and then the Home Inspection happens 
Next hurdle will be the bank appraiser they send from Chino or something who doesn’t understand the huge market value in views. He will give an increased value of $15,000 or something for the views and not come up with the value we need for the bank loan. Depending on the exact location, views in this neighborhood are worth $100,000 and upwards compared to the same house two streets away with no view.
cb, do you/does your agent have comps that demonstrate that differential?
Glad to hear about the potential back up offer! Hoping this deal closes quickly, but love that you have a potential back up.
CB,
Understand your not wanting any more stress, but… maybe you could hire your nutty former buyer to go picket outside the inspector’s home =)) On second hand, from your description, he sounds like the guy’s twin brother!