TOPIC: The right choice of words in a report.

Ray, I have the advantage of my dad having his own law firm. It comes in quite handy! When you say something IS functional, you are giving a 100% guarantee that it worked, as intended when you tested it. This is something that you as an inspector just can't do with everything. Once you state that you're SURE it's functional, you've locked yourself into that, and will have to legally defend it if challenged.

The way Robert explained his Satisfactory comment is a perfect example of CYA. Jay has done over 10,000 inspections and Robert's saying he's been an insurance inspector for 30 years. These are definitely people to listen to!

Your best bet might be to go into an attorney's office for an hour and go over some of your concerns. Have him review your contract while you're at it as your contract should spell out that you're a generalist and not capable of seeing through walls and all hidden problems. You don't know the past history of the home either.

In the end, you can change the narratives however you want. We have users who've changed them in 5 different languages, so you can definitely change around the verbiage to make yourself comfortable!

Just saw John posted before I posted this. You said that fine!

LOL  I think you said what I was trying to say much better!!!

Hey Ray.  I salute you!  Be who you are.  I have been doing this nearly 30 years and, not being contrary to Dom, nearly 22,000 inspections, give or take 500.  Every lawyer I have spoken to, every insurance agent, and every big-time inspection report writing poobah, has said to use the word "apparently" when describing things.  I have always gone with that.  But you don't have to if you don't want to.  Talking with a lawyer you trust, particularly one who has experience with real estate, would be a great idea.  You need to utilize the words that make you comfortable.

I had a foundation wall once that looked to be in great shape.  One side was hidden behind people's boxes, which were artfully placed to hide a serious horizontal crack.  What I could see I reported on, being sure to say that part of the wall was hidden behind storage boxes (remember the title of this post...).  I said that the foundation wall "appeared" to be in "fairly good" condition.  It was not.

Had I said the foundation was "fairly good for its age", or something definitive like that, my lawyer said it would have cooked my goose, not to mention the rest of me.  Also, reporting that the wall was partially blocked from view was the kicker.  My agreement states that I will not move boxes, etc., for fear of breaking personal belongings.  ALL of those things combined to pull my butt out of a probable problem.

It turns out that the term "artfully concealed" was a term coined previously in another case involving a home inspector and my lawyer used it, to the other lawyer hired by my clients after discovering the serious crack, as a precedent to absolve me and my inspection.

Your title for this post is a good one.  The report is very crucial to so many things - it protects your clients and YOU.  So do good English now OK so very good as this.

I said something about the report being 30% of your inspection experience in a previous post, on this very site (and others) some time ago:

www.homeinspectorpro.com/inspector-forum...=199.msg1073#msg1073

And I don't think I missed the point at all.....    (;>)

I agree with John about the issue of flexibility in using words like "appears."  That said, no matter what words you use, if a client is angry enough about some aspect of the inspection, any lawyer worth his/her salt will try to tear whatever words we use to shreds!

Hello John,

Just for your information (and now everybody else who reads this thread), I am an Englishman from Croydon, South London, who has only been here for ten years and enjoying every minute of it with my American wife, but I still get confused with the way you spell words and pronounce them, yet still call it English!  LOL........................

I am a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA), a M.Sc. in Architecture and owned a construction company for 28 years.  I also have a bumper sticker which says; "My son was an absolute dumbo at school, but he's a multi-millionaire now!"  It's good to laugh about things, isn't it.

Incidentally, it's still way over 100f Degrees here during the day and I assure you, attic inspections take me no longer than a couple of minutes.  So why do builders put furnaces in the Attic down here in Metropolitan Phoenix?

Sweet dreams,

Goodnight.

Hi Ray,

It's funny, I've run into quite a few Englishman who are home inspectors including Keith Swift who started InspectVue and Gerry Beaumont who has been teaching HI classes for years. Next time Keith is giving a litigation seminar (usually out here in California) you'll definitely want to come out and attend. I'll post the info here on the board as I usually go and talk as well.