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Quite a number of challenges come with buying a new home, especially for a first-timer. It often involves a wide range of requirements, activities, and you may be nervous about making an expensive mistake. Today, I’m telling you the top questions to ask home inspector before, during and after a home inspection. Some of my fellow inspectors may hate me for this, but we gotta do what we do, right?

Must Read: 8 Signs of a Great Home Inspector You Can’t Miss

questions to ask home inspector

The human brain’s biology, being naturally configured to protect us against potential harms, also complicates the issues. As it does in every buying and selling process, we want to be very confident about how we spend our money, i.e., getting the best at the least possible price.

A home inspection involves an unbiased physical examination of a property. Including an interior, exterior, and structural assessment of the property. It is associated with, but not always related to real estate transactions.

The importance of home inspection differs for a seller and a buyer. As a seller, you want to know the merits and flaws of the home so you can quickly do necessary fixes to boost your home’s value and likewise the asking price.

Buyers need to know the problems associated with the home before making any monetary commitment.

So expertise is needed to a certain degree-Someone well trained and experienced in inspecting homes from a professional point of view- a home inspector.

In this post, I will take a deep dive into the top questions to ask a home inspector and the right answers you should get in return.

Refer to inquiries; you should ask your prospective home inspectors before you hire them. Below are some of the most crucial ones:

Are you a Certified and Licensed Home Inspector?

Asking the home inspector for some vital information is not a task to be left until the inspection day. Essential questions should have been put forward to gather concise data before employing a professional inspector’s services.
It would help if you endeavored to inquire about their competencies concerning certifications and licenses.

This action puts you at an advantage to discover whether you are hiring the best hand or only a gamble.

Questions should be asked on the type of personnel development they have enrolled for, and the content of such a program.

Also, it is essential to request licenses, and how indemnified they are against adverse business outcomes.

The home inspector to be hired must be well trained and certified by appropriate authorities.

What’s your Experience as a House inspector?

The experience, they say, is the best teacher. Avoid hiring an inexperienced inspector with neither the on-the-job experience nor learning experiences.

This can be costly because you don’t want to select someone with little or no experience. The experience can also be a blend of class and field experience.

Are you a Full-time Home Inspector?

Part-time workers are not always at their job for eight hours per day and forty hours a week. To inspect your home, you need to know whether the inspector would work full-time or on a part-time basis.

Do not be too quick to think all inspectors work the same hours, ask, there is no harm in doing so. Remember that, ask and it shall be given.

What will be the Time-span of the House Inspection?

This is very important. Inquire from the potential inspector to know how long you would have to wait to have an answer. A home inspection should not take more than a few hours, except otherwise stated by the inspector. You should get the home inspection report within 1-4 business days.

Will you provide a detailed Inspection report, and what will be the Content of the Report?

Are there, leakages? Are there tears in the walls? The inspector must provide you with a comprehensive report of what the home looks like if there are defects and the necessary adjustments.

Ask before hiring the inspector whether he or she will provide a detailed analysis of the outcome regarding the condition of the home to allow you to make the right choice.

What are the Constituting Elements of the Home Inspection?

This allows you to know in earnest all that the home inspection entails. It is wise to let you know that not all assessments undertaken by inspectors are the same.

This means that various examinations are to be carried out, not all directed to answer the same questions.

For instance, if you hire an inspector to check cracks in the wall, do not be surprised that they do not look out for water damage signs.

A comprehensive home inspection package should contain about twelve different assessments or more, including cracks, water damages, inferior functioning smoke alarms, roof leaks, foul smells that may indicate something more serious, issues with kitchens and bathrooms, among others.

This is a vital question to ask before employing the services of a home inspector. The answers from here can be used to assess the competence of an inspector.

Are you a Member of any Recognized Professional Home Inspector Association?

This is a way of scrutinizing the eligibility of your potential home inspector. It would be best to ask beforehand whether the inspector is a member of any legitimate professional association.

This will give you a lifeline in advance in the case of fraud or poor service delivery. This is to protect you being underserved by the inspector. Cites the realness and competencies of the inspector.

Some notable associations are NACHI, ASHI and there’s must be some local home inspector societies in your state.

Besides, ask for the contact information of their recent two-three references. It would help if you got verified testimonials of the last two-three clients as proof of competence.

The best answers to these questions would be those that best suit your goals (i.e., why you want the home in the first place).

These refer to inquiries you should ask your home inspector during the inspection.

What’s Working and What is Not?

You must be present during the home inspection, as no one can understand your needs as much as you do.

You need to know the home’s present condition, and during an inspection is the best and right time for that.

It would be best if you ask your inspector about what is working and what is not functioning. These inquiries will further give you an insight into the condition of the home you intend to buy.

You will also be able to qualify and quantify the home’s merits and flaws and thereby boost your negotiation advantage.

For instance, you can buy a home with poor working insulation, but unknown to you, you get billed heavily for power. With good insulation, you could enjoy a far less-expensive energy needs.

Can you Explain Better?

Remember that an inspector is a professional, and they have professional jargon and complex utterances that you may not understand. So, never be too shy to ask your home inspector to expatiate on their words.

In pointing out problems and faults, don’t hesitate to demand further details about the subject matter from them.

For example, if they mention anything about poor insulation, be bold enough to ask about the implications of this on the home.

It is then you could be told about its effect on the energy bill. The response from this will aid you in making the final decision

How Bad is it?

You need to know how severe a problem is. It helps you to determine how big it is to fix a defect in the house.

From there, you can also determine how much it would cost to make such repairs. With this, you can assess what repairs to undertake and which ones to invite the seller to repair before purchasing.

In essence, it enables you to evaluate the condition of things he had earlier identified, especially those things that are faulty. How bad are they? Can they possibly be repaired or replaced? Your home inspector must notify you whether it’s a major or minor problem.

Who should Fix these Problems?

Apart from aiding you in clarifying who will bear the cost of fixing the problems identified, it will also help you to know the right man for the job.

It would be best to ask your inspector during inspection to advise you on the right set of individuals to take on the repair and maintenance job.

Again, this is where experience in the field is required. He or she must have worked with or known professionals in the circle that repair homes.

With a reliable network of contacts in the industry, they can recommend you the best hands, putting an end to the stress you or the seller could have gotten into.

Can you Show me How this Works?

The inspector should be happy to show you how to use specific mechanical or any other items you are cannot operate.
There may be appliances or instruments that are unusual to you in the house. Don’t be too embarrassed to ask from your inspector.

He or she has been to many homes, and it is most likely that they would have encountered such a device before. Demand answers to know about what you don’t know at all, and to know more about what you have a little idea.

The right answers to these questions are much more dependent on your goals and objectives. Your home inspector should be able to help you identify the merits and flaws of the home by accessing the internal, external, and structural conditions of the house.

These are inquiries you should ask your home inspector after you have received the inspection report.

Can you Explain this to me?

There are many things in the inspection report you will likely not fully understand unless you are a home inspector. Your inspector should provide you with further explanations, in more simplified terms you can easily understand.

Note that the inspection results might not reach you until about a day minimum and four days maximum. And the inspector can approach explanations in a different way from what you got during the inspection.

After receiving the report, the best thing to do is scribble down areas where clarifications are needed carefully. You can then either call or visit the inspector for better insight into the details of the report.

What Experts can you Recommend?

For every repair to be made, there’s a cost involved. However, it is not the job of an inspector to diagnose treatments for the structures, but they can know one or two people for the job.

You can ask the inspector for advice on what to do and how to do it. With this, you get the right persons for the job at the correct cost, to enjoy the best benefits.

What else could go Wrong?

This is as important as the first step to inspection.
You might want to know the possibilities for anything to go wrong during your stay and how to deal with it.

This is indeed not a pessimistic thought but a plan for the future—a wise decision for a stress-less stay at that home.
Last Words

A profound understanding of these top questions to ask a home inspector and the right answers to expect will go a long way to assist you when hiring a home inspector. Although the range of questions to ask a home inspector is an unending list.

Depending on your goals and objectives, do not hire before considering these mandatory questions to ask home inspector when buying or selling a home.

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