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Steven L. Smith, Bellingham, Wa. Home Inspector Bellingham, WA More about me… King of the House Home Inspection Office Phone: (360) 676-6908 Cell Phone: (360) 319-0038 Email Me
Home inspection information designed to be educate the real estate buyer and the real estate professional. Blog posts include general information and information specific to the Pacific Northwest region.
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Many people feel that if they buy a new home they can count on the state, the city or the county code inspectors to catch anything that is wrong. Sometimes that is true, but not all government employees are created equal and some of them are swamped with inspections. I have seen electric panels that had obvious safety issues, that were missed by code inspectors. It is not necessarily the inspectors intention to be easy or to let something slip by. I have known of code inspectors, who are very busy, who talk to a builder and get an agreement that the project will be signed off as complete and the builder or the homeowner agrees to finish of a final detail. Sometimes that part of the work is not done, at least not in a timely manner! This is common with decks and sundry final details like railings. I was told by a resident that the code inspector had signed off on this house and I know for a fact that people had been living in it for a couple weeks at least. Think about it, if you were to walk straight out the front door, and so easily step off onto the second or third step down, you are almost bound to fall hard. And this is a high area as you can tell by the number of steps. No handrails or guardrails. Broken limbs likely. This sort of detail is a good reason to have a qualified home inspector come through after the code inspector. Multiple trained eyes are better than one set.
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I couldn't agree with you more! City code inspectors have enough to do with complaints from tenants and such that there isn't enough time in the day to do what needs to be done. I used to Property Manage for over 7 years and I have seen first hand just how busy they are and how tired they can be when they show up especially over something petty for an example that a tenant may be trying to use to get out of paying rent or to delay so they can scoot out.