Teas Inspectors: Have you heard of the "Penalty Matrix"?

[Rick Hurst]

That TREC is attempting to set forth.

[Rick Hurst]

I received a email from Andrea at TAREI regarding fines that TREC is attempting to set forth for items missed by a Home Inspector. How do they come up with this stuff?

What a crock of sh*t this is!:mad:

rick

[Rick Hurst]

I've had to copy and paste the email I received to a word document and convert it to a PDF.

Maybe it will post this time.

rick

[George Russell]

Yup we're screwed until we get out from under the thumb of the real estate commission. I feel it's their answer to us pointing out the redundancy of E&O here in Texas. If they can't screw us out of money one way they'll try another. How in the hell can it NOT be a conflict of interest having TREC in charge of home inspectors??


I received a email from Andrea at TAREI regarding fines that TREC is attempting to set forth for items missed by a Home Inspector. How do they come up with this stuff?

What a crock of sh*t this is!:mad:

rick

[Dan Harris]

I received a email from Andrea at TAREI regarding fines that TREC is attempting to set forth for items missed by a Home Inspector. How do they come up with this stuff?

What a crock of sh*t this is!:mad:

rick

Holy crap.. Fifty bucks for not reporting a bad tub stopper. I and a few others thought AZ was bad.. I hope the AZ BTR doesn't see this and get more ideas :)

[Nick Ostrowski]

Hmmmmmm......the PDF says there should be definitive answers to these questions this Friday the 1st of April. I'm not from Texas and don't know how long this has been in the pipeline. But......... is this possibly somebody's idea of a bad April Fools joke?

The Penalty Matrix sounds like a Keanu Reeves movie.

[Eric Shuman]

Better start dotting those "I"s and crossing those "T"s so to speak. I have always considered myself a thorough inspector (and have been told this as well -maybe that's why business has been slow:D ), but as we all know, and as that email states, we will all miss something at some point whether it be a $10 or $1000 issue.

Not to mention report form errors, advertising violations, perceived ethics violations...

The dang SOP and rules for TX inspectors are convoluted enough without some crazy "Matrix" thrown in the mix. Heck, you can't even get a straight interpretation or clarification from TREC on many of the SOP "requirements", including the ones that contradict each other or just don't make sense. Somethings gotta give!

What is the REAL purpose of a penalty matrix? Required insurance is not enough? Recovery fund is not enough? Current punishment requirements not enough?

Come on. even TREC acknowledges in the new report form that (bold is mine), "This property inspection is not an exhaustive inspection of the structure, systems, or components. The inspection may not reveal all deficiencies. A real estate inspection helps to reduce some of the risk involved in purchasing a home, but it cannot eliminate these risks..."

Of course I will continue to do my best to provide the most thorough inspection that I can but I hardly see how any penalty matrix that TREC can come up with is going to be fair.

While I know that there are inspectors out there that are not thorough, do not follow all the rules, do miss things due to incompetence, and maybe shouldn't be inspecting, every inspector (even a good one) is likley to miss something at some point. And all it will take is a client with an attitude problem (we've all had one) to get the ball rolling, even if you provided such a client with an inspection that many of us would consider to be thorough and acceptable under current rules.

How to protect oursleves? I guess now we may have to start taking photos of every little thing that is obstructed from view and list every little nook and cranny that we could not access and provide disclaimer after disclaimer in the body of the report. This is going to make for some long and confusing reports. Heck, many of the reports I have seen already have tons of disclaimers under each section before the client can even get to the listed deficiencies.

I had truly wanted to go to the TREC meeting tomorrow but I cannot afford to lose those two inspections that are scheduled. Hopefully Mike Boyett will go a (thanks Mike for all of your efforts) and post to his website.

[JB Thompson]

Hopefully Mike Boyett will go a (thanks Mike for all of your efforts) and post to his website.

Mike isn't able to go.

[Nolan Kienitz]

Nick - No it is NOT a joke. The information that Rick posted came out from TREC itself well over a month or so ago. It is almost 'old news' now. Just that it is being officially moved forward at the TREC and IAC meeting that is set for tomorrow in Austin.

Eric - No Mike B. won't be attending unless something super magical has happened. He, as well as myself and others have and are stepping away from being so close to all the stuff going on in Austin with TREC.


If any of the other TX HIs have been paying attention to our legislative items they will have noted that TREC is about to become an "autonomous" organization ... still within the State of Texas structure, but they may be approved for the "stand-a-lone" operation. There are a few other Texas State Agencies who have moved to that status over the past years. If you go to Mike Boyett's BLOG you will see more details about such.

Anyway ... if the current state legislature approves that move for TREC the any/all funds the collect will stay within the TREC bank account. Currently any funds over a certain amount are automatically moved to the Texas General Fund and not specifically available for use by TREC. So ... when the current inspector's recovery fund gets more $$ than what the cap is those $$ leave TREC and get dumped in the TX General Fund. So ... the overage that any HI or Realtor or Appraiser has put in ... could be now in use for pothole repair in Dallas County. Or wherever they decide to use the funds from the TX General Fund.

Here is the URL for Mike's Blog: Welcome to Capital City Inspections | Keeping Texas Inspectors Informed (http://www.capcityinspections.com/blog/)

[Stuart Brooks]

Looks to me you Texas guys need to adjust your fees to match. Say, start at $2,500, a canceled inspection gets a $500 penalty fee, a realtor late to open property, $250 per minute, errors found in error claim, $500 each per day. I certainly think the home inspection fee should be at least half the sales commission. Taken from the listing agent/broker. I hope you guys are organized. You can only fight this crud as a group.

Best of luck.

[Ron Bibler]

Looks to me you Texas guys need to adjust your fees to match. Say, start at $2,500, a canceled inspection gets a $500 penalty fee, a realtor late to open property, $250 per minute, errors found in error claim, $500 each per day. I certainly think the home inspection fee should be at least half the sales commission. Taken from the listing agent/broker. I hope you guys are organized. You can only fight this crud as a group.

Best of luck.

I hope other states are not looking at what Texas is trying to do:eek:

They just needs to call this what it is a new tax. under another name.

California is still doing the right thing no state licensing for home inspectors.

Now who is this guy that came up with this new IDEA:mad:

BEST GET A ROPE.

Best

Ron

[Matt Fellman]

Wow... I guess it's true what they say.... everything is bigger in Texas. Even the crocks of crap.

That's just ridiculous. May state's politics annoy me sometimes but I'm starting to think it's not that bad here.

[Nick Ostrowski]

If my state had HI rules and fines like this, I think my report would disclaim just about everything.

[Scott Patterson]

TREC is a good example of a governmental agency that is runamuck! It is using what I would call, and I hate to use the phrase "Gestapo" tactics.

From my non-resident (but TX native) point of view the problems that we see with home inspectors and TREC have nothing to do with TREC being the enforcement agency for the real estate profession. It is common in many states to have real estate agents, appraisers and home inspectors under the same state agency. As long as each has their own board and board members it works fairly well. Just my opinion and that is based from serving on a state board for 5 years in MS.

With budget cuts looming on the horizon for just about all state agencies in every single state those agencies are having to get more creative when it comes to creating revenue. Just how many attorneys does TREC have on staff?

Perhaps if TREC was to raise the fees associated with the home inspector, real estate and appraiser licenses that would be the way to go. TX license fees are some if not the lowest in the country. Has anyone suggested this?

If I had the ear of the news media I bet that I could get some attention to this subject by showing what an out of control government agency is attempting to do. I might also bring up the fact that TREC lowered the cut score or the pass ratio for the license exam to appease the schools. Then I would also bring up the fact that the state exam is out of date and on and on and on and on!!

[JB Thompson]

Was anyone able to go to the IAC meeting today?