Thread: Stop these agents

I have a few homes that I have provided inspection reports for buyers that did not buy the homes.

Now the Listing Real Estate agents are handing out my reports to any and all looking at the property. I get these calls from new buyers or just lookers wanting to talk about the homes condition.

Any advise on how to 1. Protect my self. 2. Stop these agents from handing out my reports.

Best

Ron

Similar Threads:

• real estate agents ...
• Buyers Agents Contracts
• Moisture stop, brick ledge
• Estate agents and environmentalists round on Kelly as Hips scheme ... - Guardian Unli
• Agents inspector missed a bunch.

Do you copyright your reports? Is there a warning on the report that the only one's entitled to have it are those who paid you for it and that nobody may copy it or distribute it to anyone withour your permission?

If so, sue one of them and the word will get out.

We had an appraiser up here in Washingtons State a few years ago who's appaisal reports were being shared with parties that had'nt paid for them. He won in court and collected some cash for it.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

Yes to all you ask mike.

Have you ever sent out a letter ?

Best

Ron

Crap happens. Won't be the first or the last time someone gets a copy.
Forget about suing, its costly and you can't guarantee the outcome.

If your client is buying the report,does the report belong to the client?

Hi,

No, I've never sent out a letter. Before each inspection I carefully go over the contract with the client and I am always careful to explain that the report is copyrighted.

I tell 'em something like;

"The report is my copyrighted work product. It's produced by me for you and nobody else. If you walk away from this house, you do not have the right to resell the report to recoup the cost of your inspection because you do not own the report - it's licensed to you.

If you need to share portions of the report with your agent or the seller or the listing agent in order to move your transaction forward, you can do so; however, if you walk away from this house make darned sure that at the point that you do that, they know that they are to destroy all copies and that it is not to be copied, distributed to, or shared with anyone else.

Should you fail to do that, and later on my report ends up in the hands of those who aren't authorized to have it, and I find out about it, I'll consider it a violation of my copyright and someone is going to be talking to my lawyer.

Bottom line, if someone else wants a copy of my inspection report for this house, they can hire me to come back out here, I'll do another inspection, go home and write another report and they can pay me for my work. I do not resell the same report twice."

Am I silly enough to believe that my reports never get distributed? No, but in more than 13 years there have been less than half a dozen times when I found out that someone had distributed my report to others and when they did that I promptly picked up the phone, called those others, told them that they were not entitled to my report and demanded that they return it to me posthaste, without making copies of it, or I was going to call my lawyer.

One guy was a little bit of an a**hole and told me to kiss his ass. I promptly sent him a copy of the contract along with an invoice for the report and tacked on an additional $100 administration fee. I put a sticky in one corner - "You've, got 72hrs to fill out and sign this contract and return it to me along with the cost of the inspection or I'll be seeing you in small claims court." The report arrived by snail mail three days later with a nasty commentary attached telling me that I'm a dickhead (Yeah, like that bothered me. I'm an ex-cop - I've been called worse.).

Our reports are our product; they are us and they are our livelihood. When others distribute our reports to others who aren't entitled by contract to have a copy, they are essentially cheating us out of monies owed to us in exactly the same way that copying or redistributing a videotape or DVD is cheating the publishers of those works out of monies owed to them.

Who else is going to protect your company and your livelihood if you don't do it?

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

Hi,

It never went that far,

1. I called, told him that I'd learned he had an unauthorized copy of my report and I demanded it back.
2. He told me to kiss his ass.
3. I sent him a copy of the contract and an invoice for the inspection along with $100 tacked on for an administration fee. Told him he had 3 days to sign and pay for it or I would go to court.
4. Rather than go through all of that, he complied with my original demand and returned the report along with a not-so-complimentary note of his own.
5. Since my original demand had been met, I didn't need to take it to court.
6. Mission accomplished, lesson administered.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

Originally Posted by Ron Bibler

I have a few homes that I have provided inspection reports for buyers that did not buy the homes.

Now the Listing Real Estate agents are handing out my reports to any and all looking at the property. I get these calls from new buyers or just lookers wanting to talk about the homes condition.

Any advise on how to 1. Protect my self. 2. Stop these agents from handing out my reports.

Best

Ron

RB: There is probably nothing short of spending a hundred grand on attorney fees that you can do other than listing the agent(s) on:

OutrageousAgents.Com - Realtor and Real Estate Agent Reviews, Ratings, and News

Additionally, I would call the buyer who paid for the report and have them either call or write to the agent's broker regarding the privacy issue. Also, if you have Angie's list members for clients, have them pen something negative on Angie's list regarding this crude behavior.

Contact the real estate commission. Nah, that's just a joke.

Once you have done all of these things, give the old bat a call. Ask her just how soon does she want you to relent. Tell her you will in exchange for removing the report from view. If she's not willing, just explain that you intend to kick your efforts against her up a notch or two.

I contact my client who paid for the report and tell them thet the broker is hanfding ouut their report and that mabey they should ask for payback, I leave it at that as I am out of the deal. If someone calls me asking about the report I tell them to call the owner of the report or hire me to do another inspection.

Was the agent handing out the report in on the original deal. Selling agent, possibly?

Originally Posted by Ron Bibler

I have a few homes that I have provided inspection reports for buyers that did not buy the homes.

Now the Listing Real Estate agents are handing out my reports to any and all looking at the property. I get these calls from new buyers or just lookers wanting to talk about the homes condition.

Any advise on how to 1. Protect my self. 2. Stop these agents from handing out my reports.

Best

Ron

Question Ron!
New Buyers; what was your Convention ratio? I do Pre-Listing with the hope of Converting the Buyers/Lookers in to my customers. So I was just thinking, how manny of the callers did you end up doing an Home Inspection for?

Life is just too short to worry about who is getting my report after I have completed it. Heck, I have been paid for it and I moving on to the next client. As for third party use of my reports? Ya, I say that it is not for anyone but my client, etc, etc, etc...... It is in the report on a couple of pages, I also copyright each page. But, that is as far as I go with it.

Originally Posted by Scott Patterson

Life is just too short to worry about who is getting my report after I have completed it. Heck, I have been paid for it and I moving on to the next client. As for third party use of my reports? Ya, I say that it is not for anyone but my client, etc, etc, etc...... It is in the report on a couple of pages, I also copyright each page. But, that is as far as I go with it.

Hi Scott. you ever have a court case with another inspector that some one used his unauthorized report to buy with and then an item came up after the escrow that they wanted to go after that inspector.

Best

Ron

Ron
I’ve advised the attorney who retained me to help defend a home inspector being sued by a third party who was given a copy of his report by the listing agent after his original client walked (real dump) to ask for a summary judgment as every page in his report had that common disclaimer, “For Mr. & Mrs. Brown only, bla, bla, bla.” Guess what? The court saw it our way and granted summary judgment. However, in law there is always a "however," each case stands alone and the decision will always be how the judge interprets the law and/or their own past life experiences related to the facts of the case before them.
Personally I don’t know of an absolute sure way of keeping one's report out of the hands of unscrupulous agents and would adopt Scott’s attitude as it’s just another dumb fact of life in the home inspection industry and the lack of respect the real estate industry has for us. Never forget that we are basic speed bumps for many agents on the way to the title company to pick up their commission checks.

PS: Of course there’s always the option of including the notation on each page of the report, “BURN AFTER READING.”

How about putting a curse on the report cover page which protects the entire document?

ATTENTION REALTORS:
This report has been performed for the client who's name is on this document and is not intended for use by any third parties.

To protect this Home Inspection report, a curse has been placed on this document. If you should copy this report and give to another potential buyer, the curse will be activated and prevent you from closing another deal for the next 12 months.

Originally Posted by Rick Hurst

How about putting a curse on the report cover page which protects the entire document?

ATTENTION REALTORS:
This report has been performed for the client who's name is on this document and is not intended for use by any third parties.

To protect this Home Inspection report, a curse has been placed on this document. If you should copy this report and give to another potential buyer, the curse will be activated and prevent you from closing another deal for the next 12 months.

RH: Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!

Originally Posted by Scott Patterson

Life is just too short to worry about who is getting my report after I have completed it. Heck, I have been paid for it and I moving on to the next client. As for third party use of my reports? Ya, I say that it is not for anyone but my client, etc, etc, etc...... It is in the report on a couple of pages, I also copyright each page. But, that is as far as I go with it.

Originally Posted by Jerry McCarthy

Personally I don’t know of an absolute sure way of keeping one's report out of the hands of unscrupulous agents and would adopt Scott’s attitude as it’s just another dumb fact of life in the home inspection industry and the lack of respect the real estate industry has for us. Never forget that we are basic speed bumps for many agents on the way to the title company to pick up their commission checks.

PS: Of course there’s always the option of including the notation on each page of the report, “BURN AFTER READING.”

I basically had Scott's attitude with additional information in the footer in the copyright notice, except it was on EVERY PAGE: (highlighted section in quote below with underlining and red text)

©This report is work product and is copyrighted by the company shown above (CONSTRUCTION LITIGATION CONSULTANTS, LLC. ) as of the date of this report (). Duplication by any means whatsoever, including sharing access to a protected copy, is prohibited without prior written permission and authorization from the company shown above. Duplication of, use of, or reliance on this report in any way for any purpose whatsoever has the effect of agreeing to the terms and conditions as set forth in the Authorization and Contract for Services, included herewith as numbered pages 3 and 4 of the original report, which are included for the users review, please do so. Unauthorized duplication of, use of, or reliance on this report has the effect of all parties agreeing to hold harmless, individually, jointly, and/or otherwise, this inspector, the Company, their successors and assigns AND IS A VIOLATION OF FEDERAL COPYRIGHT LAWS.

They pass the report around ...

They use it at their own risk ...

They agree to hold me harmless.

Other than that, not much we can do about it.

If I had known EC Jerry 20 years ago I would have "borrowed" his disclaimer word for word. I suggest everybody seriously consider doing such now if Jerry doesn't mind? Remember, there's strength in both numbers and continuity.

Good agents will not circulate your reports. Those are the agents who everyone should cultivate. Very seldom has a new purchaser ended up with my report and called me as a result, so I assume my reports are not being circulated. But then again...

Originally Posted by Ron Bibler

Hi Scott. you ever have a court case with another inspector that some one used his unauthorized report to buy with and then an item came up after the escrow that they wanted to go after that inspector.

Best

Ron

Yep, me!

A very long story, but in the end I was off the hook. The kicker was during a depo when I was asked why Mr.X did not have the addendum that I sent a day after the report was issued to my original client. I simply replied that Mr. X was not my client at that time and I had no idea he even existed! Shorty after that I was excused from the lawsuit, that left 5 more defendants! Oh, and the plaintiff was a US District Attorney, he knew how to play the system.

Good agents will not circulate your reports. Those are the agents who everyone should cultivate.

RW: Where are you hiding these so-called "good agents", anyway?

Originally Posted by A.D. Miller

RW:
.
Where are you hiding these so-called "good agents", anyway?

.
.......
.

Originally Posted by Billy Stephens

.
.......
.

BS: !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its awfully dark in there, does anyone have a light?

Originally Posted by Raymond Wand

Its awfully dark in there, does anyone have a light?

RW: This is a great light for use on agents:

Google Image Result for http://blogs.abcnews.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/15/laser_dazzler.jpg

AND, just $9K. Cheaper that RB's whizbang camera.

after 5 years of doing home inspections i can relate to scott's feelings on this subject. too much is out of our control no matter how hard we may try. some aspects of this job can't be completely managed as well as we'd like.

my agreement / contract states who the report is intended for, that it may not be reproduced / copied / distributed without my consent, blah blah blah.

i do get a few calls per year from buyers asking if they can have ( for free! ) or purchase an inspection report that i had done for a previous client. after explaining that i can't assume that liability, i always say "no", but that i'd be happy to take another look at the property for them.

dave

I don't worry about what people do with my report. As per contract, client agrees that report is for their exclusive use and if a third party makes a claim against me that they (client) will defend me and absorb any related costs.