Lee - I agree with you, it's confusing and the role of the home inspector sometimes feels pretty poorly defined. One reason I didn't argue with my in$surance company, as Jack did, is that I have had too many experiences with re-inspections where I have repeatedly gone back to the same property, as the seller tries to incrementally get me to lower my standards by doing half-assed repairs, to the point where I start looking like the bad guy who is holding things up. Meanwhile, getting someone (my client? the seller?) to pay for my time becomes a major pain. I prefer to keep things simple, do my job, and emphasize in the strongest terms that only qualified professionals do any and all repairs. It's not a perfect world, but it works for me.