Darcy Zallen liked the spacious half-acre Maple Ridge property she purchased a lot more than the little bungalow on it, but thought as long as the home was structurally sound, she could live with it.
She needed the outdoor space for her dogs and the work she does for an animal rescue society.
However, despite a property inspector’s report that indicated some minor problems and noted a roof needed to be replaced within five years, Zallen faces spending up to an estimated $40,000 to make major repairs before she can move in.
She purchased the home for $405,000.
“I think I did what I could, I hired an inspector,” Zallen, a civilian employee of the RCMP, said in an interview.
The trouble is, she didn’t know what standards the inspector would be working under, what things he would look at and what things he wouldn’t.
In April, the provincial government implemented a requirement for home and property inspectors to be licensed with Consumer Protection B.C. to bring a measure of order to a previously unregulated industry.
Licensing requires inspectors to be members of one of three organizations that administer training and sets ethical standards and standards of practice for inspections.
However, it remains a buyer-beware environment in which consumers need to know what to expect from home inspections.
Zallen selected her inspector from a list provided to her by the relocation service that handled her move from the Sunshine Coast.
Zallen said she told the inspector that if any major repairs needed to be done, she couldn’t afford them.
“My main concern was the roof, because it was tar and gravel, but it had this weird metal covering,” she said.
The inspector’s report said the roof should be replaced within five years and that interim maintenance would be required. However, he couldn’t determine how many layers there were to the roof or their condition, noting that a core sample would be needed to make the assessment.
However, when Zallen brought in roofing contractors to do maintenance, they told her the roof was beyond repair.
And when other contractors started what she thought were cosmetic renovations, they uncovered a wall that was rotting away.
“You could stick your finger right into the roof where the ceiling meets the east wall,” Zallen said.
For a second opinion, she brought in an independent inspector, who called the initial assessment “one of the worst inspections he’d ever seen.”
That inspector, Bruce Hunter, said consumers need to read and understand the standards of practice, which spell out what inspectors will look at, and what they won’t.
The standards used by the British Columbia Institute of Property Inspectors and the Canadian Association of Home and Property Inspectors (B.C.) say inspections are visual only and do not serve as a warranty for any building components inspected.
“If people knew what wouldn’t be checked, they would have an opportunity to bring someone in [for more detailed examination],” Hunter said.
He added that while the provincial licensing requirement did succeed in pushing inspectors without credentials out of the industry, it did not adequately address a problem he sees with realtors referring clients to certain inspectors.
Hunter said inspectors wind up in a potential conflict of interest if they depend on referrals from realtors for work, or let realtors pay the fees for inspections.
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