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So why do we do this? Well, we’re trying to protect your home inspection report from being used wrongly by someone who didn’t pay for it, and we’re trying to protect our livelihood and our liability. We believe that someone else using your home inspection report is unfair to you because you paid for it. Why should a different buyer be able to rely solely on a report that you paid for without paying for their own report? Yes, we do think that’s unfair to you.
However, because of real estate disclosure laws in New Jersey, the Seller and/or Seller’s agent often use your home inspection report to represent the conditions of the property if you decide not to buy it. That’s unfair to us because, say, two months after you decided not to buy it, new buyers might decide that your home inspection report from two months ago accurately represents the property for them. It very likely does not, which could bring unwanted liability to us from a Client who was not a Client at all. You are our Client, not someone else who happens to read your home inspection report without having paid for it. Remember that real estate conditions can change on a daily basis due to something being damaged, breaking down, failing, etc., particularly in a home that is still being lived in. Such defects, because they happened after your inspection, would not be in our report.
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We also often run into the situation where the Seller or Seller’s agent represents that something in a home inspection report for a previous buyer (such as you) has been repaired or replaced. It might have, but only another thorough inspection will be able to determine whether it was repaired or replaced, and whether or not it was repaired or replaced properly, particularly if the homeowner did the work rather than hiring appropriate professionals to do it. There’s a difference between being repaired or replaced, and being repaired or replaced properly.
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