Alex Steinberg, of JBS Home Inspections, probes the underside of the gutters during a house inspection in Newton.
“We've got one side saying, ‘Yes, it's allowable.’ We've got another side saying ‘No,’ ” Verbeek said at the virtual meeting. His lawyer has given him a “hard no” on doing consultations, he said. “And now we have a situation here where potentially hundreds of thousands of consumers in the state of Massachusetts are getting this conflicting information.”
A number of inspectors said they think walk-and-talks skirt the law and put inspectors in the position of providing a service that’s well short of what they’re meant to do. Some said they’d been advised by lawyers that they could be personally liable if a client sues them after a mini-inspection. “Real estate agents anxious to move sales forward are going to encourage — or advise, even — their clients to waive home inspections to make their offers ‘look appealing,’ is the line,” she said. “So if home inspectors don't do consultations, who will? Plumbers, electricians? Handymen?”
Board chair Michael Healy, also an inspector, asked the group’s legal counsel to draft some kind of clarification for the industry and the public. But he said the board’s enforcement ability is generally limited to reviewing complaints.