Paying $500 for a home inspection that missed everything

I bought my first house in Portland last year and hired a home inspector who came highly recommended. He spent maybe 90 minutes walking around, poking at a few outlets, and handed me a 30 page report that looked official but said basically nothing useful. Six weeks after moving in, I found out the sewer line was completely collapsed and the roots had been visible in the crawl space if anyone had actually looked. That cost me $4,200 to fix and my yard still looks like a war zone. The roof also started leaking three months later, another thing he marked as "good condition." I'm not saying all inspectors are worthless, but that guy definitely was. Has anyone else had a home inspection that was basically a waste of cash?

2 comments

2 Comments

aarons3616d ago

Wait, hold on. The roots were visible in the crawl space and he still missed it? That's insane. You don't even need a license to spot tree roots growing through a pipe, you just need eyes. The roof too, that's brutal. A guy spending 90 minutes in a house and missing two of the biggest, most expensive problems you can have is just pure garbage work. I get being thorough costs time, but ignoring what's right in front of you is something else entirely.

jordan65316d ago

oh man, wait, the roots were just sitting there in the crawl space and he didn't see them? that's not even being a bad inspector, that's just not looking. idk how you spend an hour and a half in a house and don't glance at the pipes or the roof. i mean i get that inspectors miss stuff sometimes but that's just straight up negligence right there. i'd be furious if i paid someone $500 to basically walk through my house and not notice trees growing in my sewer line. that's wild.