Should home inspectors disclose pest infestation?
Q. Your column often evaluates conflict issues that arise during real estate transactions, so I offer this for your comment. I recently purchased a mobile home from a seller who happened to be a termite inspector. Rather than hiring another company to perform the termite inspection, he provided his own report on the property, and the report listed no defects of any kind.
When I hired a home inspector to look at the home, his report contained several instances of moisture damage to the structure and recommended further investigation by a termite inspector. When these new findings were presented to the seller, he became irate and reported the home inspector to the state licensing agency for making disclosures outside his area of expertise. Now the home inspector must defend himself against censure by a government agency, and all because he was protecting the interests of me, his client.
If home inspectors are not allowed to disclose problems involving infestation, then what's the point of having an inspection?
A. Termite inspection is a highly regulated business, and home inspectors walk a thin line when disclosing conditions reserved by law to those who are duly licensed as pest control operators (the euphemistic title for termite inspectors).
The pest inspection industry is strictly controlled by state bureaucracies. Accordingly, anyone not officially licensed as a pest inspector cannot legally disclose the presence of wood destroying organisms such as termites, fungus, carpenter bees, wood boring beetles, etc.
What then are home inspectors to do when observing this type of damage in a building? Should inspectors ignore these problem, say nothing to their clients, and hope that full disclosure will be made in the termite inspector's report? And if by chance a termite inspector should fail to disclose a problem, who will protect the home inspector from resultant lawsuits?
This dilemma is a potential threat to all home inspectors, challenging them to provide disclosure without breaking the law. Fortunately, there is a simple solution, and it is all a matter of words. When termite problems are evident in a building, a home inspector may legally disclose "possible insect damage," with a recommendation for further evaluation by a licensed termite inspector. If fungus or dry rot problems are observed during a home inspection, it is permissible to say "apparent moisture damage," followed by the same recommendation.
If your home inspector used that kind of verbiage, then the seller acted improperly when reporting the matter to the state licensing agency. On the other hand, if the home inspector specified by name a particular type of wood-destroying organism, then he was acting outside the law and could be subject to legal consequences.
In either case, if moisture damage was evident, this should have been disclosed in the seller's own termite report. Had such disclosure been made, there would have been no need for disagreement between the inspectors or for invoking the powers of the state bureaucracy. The home inspector, at worst, was guilty of a professional breach. The seller, at worst, was guilty of an ethical one.
• To write to Barry Stone, visit him on the web at www.housedetective.com, or write AMG, 1776 Jami Lee Court, Suite 218, San Luis Obispo, CA 94301.
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