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Brian Hannigan
07-10-2018, 11:55 PM
Hey there,

InspectorPro has been publishing a lot of great articles lately that I think have had great information to help protect you and your business and keep your claims low.

It doesn't matter who you are insured with, you may find some info here that will save your butt down the road.

Republished with their permission.

Brian
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Top 5 Things to Include in Your Pre-Inspection Agreement
Published on 2018-05-31 00:01:32

Pre-inspection agreements are home inspectors’ foundations. Without them, clients are left to assume the nature of inspections. And as inspector and mentor Jan Banks stated in a previous article, clients for whom expectations aren’t set often believe inspections are warranties. That leaves inspectors subject to a lot of unnecessary risk.

But simply having an inspection agreement doesn’t necessarily mitigate a home inspector’s risk. Home inspectors need thorough contracts that cater to their specific state law to successfully avoid potential claims.

Below, we list some of the important provisions to include in pre-inspection agreements. The list isn’t exhaustive and does not acknowledge requirements by state. The list can, however, provide inspectors with the groundwork to begin a conversation with knowledgeable, local legal counsel to craft or revise their home inspection contract language.

What to include
Exclusions:
Exclusions are exactly what they sound like; they’re items of risk specifically not covered by a contract to avoid excessive liability.

The American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) Standard of Practice (SOP) helps determine a typical inspection’s scope. By outlining what inspections are and aren’t, the SOP gives inspectors ground to stand on when excluding elements in their contracts.

There are several types of exclusions, including items that you:

*never inspect
*usually inspect but you may exclude due to extenuating circumstances
*only inspect if the client adds the optional service for a fee

Read on for specifics on each exclusion type with pre-inspection agreement samples.

Items You Never Inspect
Since they are limited, non-invasive surveys of homes and their systems and components, home inspections aren’t technically exhaustive. There are some things home inspectors just cannot or will not find because discovering such defects reaches beyond inspectors’ capacity. Such items that you never inspect need to be excluded from your pre-inspection agreement so that clients have MORE.... (https://www.inspectorproinsurance.com/risk_management/top-5-things-to-include-in-your-pre-inspection-agreement/?utm_source=Inspection%20News&utm_medium=Forum)