I had the opportunity to inspect a house yesterday which I previously looked at 4 years ago. It was for the same people as they are thinking about selling and wanted to put together a priority list of areas that may need repairs. Admittedly, I'm nervous looking at the same house twice because I know more now than I did then. However, after looking at the house a 2nd time and then viewing the original report, I was relieved to see I saw the same things 4 years ago. However, this wasn't a relief for the owners as they didn't do anything with some of the ominous issues. While they did upgrade their electrical service and get a whole new service panel, grading issues and moisture problems in the crawlspace appear to have someballed into the need for some potentially costly repairs (I noted poor grading and wet sill plate issues in the original report). Other items which were not addressed were multiple nail pops on the roof (now multiple stains on ceilings from leaks and cupping shingles - roof due for replacement), no provision for combustion make-up air to furnace closet (still no provision), seal leak on skylight in kitchen (still the same skylight).

After telling my wife about this, she said "Instead of paying you again, all they needed to do was look at the original report and fix everything they ignored". Very true. Except some of these original issues have now turned into bigger issues.

I see the same thing when following myself. Unless the sellers did the repairs as part of the original deal, lots of stuff never gets addressed. Nothing you can do except "I told you so" and nobody wants to hear that.

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Jim Luttrall
Mr. Inspector.net, Inc.
Allen, Texas 75002

It's been my experience that when sellers give buyers credits against the listed selling price for fixing things home inspectors discover and report the buyers usually uses those credits for some new furniture, a vacation or whatever?
I too found darn near every thing the same when I did repeat inspections a few years after the first one and low and behold almost nothing on my hit-lists were touched. I firmly believe this condition has become a national home buyer's tradition. I only got a bit nervous when I was retained to inspect a couple of homes I had built in a former life as a contractor, but don't recall any real problems except having to crawl around on the rough raked rat proofing while inspecting the foundation crawl space. Talk about retribution!

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Jerry McCarthy
Construction Consultant
www.expertbuildingconsultants.com

Hey cross all your t. and . your I They never want to do the work in an inspection report.

Best

Ron

No joke. A credit almost always equals nothing done when you return several years later. I am in a small town, and every year I do several houses that I've done previously. It's almost always the exact same situation as it was on the previous report.

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Jim Robinson
New Mexico, USA

I have inspected the same house four times in ten years!! Funny thing is that I kept finding something new that I had missed or that had developed since the last inspection!

I have inspected many homes three time over the years and a whole bunch two times.

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Scott Patterson
Spring Hill, TN
http://www.traceinspections.com

Here in Texas we are required to place a Notice of Inspection in a home when doing a WDI report.

After many years of just doing PC, termite treatments, and WDI reports, I have placed thousands of those stickers underneath kitchen sink on cabinet doors.

Now that I'm doing more HI work than PC, I run across my own stickers that are dated years ago and I can't remember being in that home most of the time.

rick

ok, so how do you guys handle a 2nd inspection on the same property 3 days later, for new buyers who know nothing of the prior inspection ?

That's happened to me about 3 times over the last 10 years. I've told the new buysers that I've just completed an inspection and that they might want to obtain the original report from the previous buyers otherwise I've got to do a complete new inspection. I think each time I went out and did a 2nd inspection due to buyer tensions.