By Barry Stone
Dear Barry,
As a home inspector, I am writing as a representative of the entire home inspection industry. Some U.S. Government officials will be meeting to discuss the long-term benefits of performing home and building inspections on federally owned properties. I have been asked to present evidence of the long-term benefits of our industry, to show that inspections are worthwhile. Government people seem to like paperwork, but thus far I've been unable to find any studies or other documentary evidence to support the benefits of home inspection. What do you advise? -- De Anna
Dear De Anna,
To the best of my knowledge, there have been no official studies to demonstrate the efficacy of home inspection. But one must ask whether such studies are truly necessary and how such studies could actually be conducted.
There are facts that require evidential proof, and there are those which are self evident. Any random sampling of home inspection reports would clearly demonstrate that significant defects are routinely discovered by home inspectors and that without a home inspection these problems could produce costly consequences for unsuspecting buyers. Many of the problems found by inspectors involve violations of established safety standards - fire safety, gas safety, electrical safety, etc. What more is needed to convince sensible people that inspection of government property is advantageous to everyone involved.
Unfortunately, it is typical of government bureaucracy to require documentary proof of the obvious. Until the paperwork is submitted, beneficial actions are routinely avoided and recommendations to implement positive procedures are summarily shelved. It recalls the days when the adverse health affects of cigarette smoking had not yet been documented. Never mind the countless smokers desperately wheezing with chronic emphysema or the fact that all smokers were inclined to be short of breath during physical exertions. Proven studies were needed: Otherwise, the observable was not factual.
So now we need a contingent of university statisticians to assure us that evaluation of real estate, prior to acquisition, is superior to buying a "pig in a poke." What can you say to such people? They are the ones who debate which exit door to use while their house is engulfed in flames.
Formal proof of the benefits of home inspection may not yet exist, but neither have there been studies to demonstrate the inadvisability of swimming in a river inhabited by crocodiles. In such situations, common sense precludes the need for exhaustive investigation. Your task, therefore, is to convince entrenched government types of that which is plain and obvious. Not an encouraging prospect, but I wish you well in this worthwhile endeavor.
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