YES THEY ARE!!!
I recently had a buyer who liked this house that was completely remodeled. Everything was done with the appropriate permits but some of the permits were still open in the county. We placed an offer on the property with the usual "Right to Inspect" and the buyer hired a Home Inspector.
The owner needed to close the existing permits and for that he would need to call for all the final inspections. You really never know if the inspector assigned will do the thorough job that he is suppossed to do or if he will do a thorough job of downing that thick steak dinner the owner can provide him for a quick pass on the finals.
The Home Inspector pointed out numerous improvements that had not been done up to code. He crawled in a tight crawl space that many would just point a flashlight into. Noticed some violations in the crawl space and documented each with photographs.
When the inspector arrived to do the final inspections the buyer was present and casually mentioned that his Home Inspector found some code violations. The inspector asked what they were and then proceeded to perform the required inspection.
It turned out that the local inspector found numerous other violations that existed. The owner corrected all of the violations expeditiously but not before he had to invest an additional $4000 to $5000 to get the home up to code.
In Miami, you really never know what to expect. The local Building Department inspector may have been a trye professional and would have cited the violations on his own. A professional opinion pointing out that some did in fact exist prior to his inspection definitely makes that steak dinner inspection more difficult.
Aside from the code violations, the Home Inspector cited repairs needed that far exceeded the $400 fee that he charged. Since the purchase agreement stated that the owner had to perform repairs up to 1% of the purchase price, the owner obliged we were able to close promptly.
The $400 inspection fee helped keep the local inspector honest and prompted repairs by the owner of approximately $2000.
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