eSignature Legitimacy for Property Inspection Report in United States

How to eSign a document: e-signature legitimacy for Property Inspection Report in United States

[Music] hello I'm Jo den ler one of the newest members of internachi's legal team today we're going to speak to a topic that is the constant source of questions by inspectors and that is pre inspection agreements generally speaking your pre inspection agreement is the written document that sets forth the relationship between you and your client whether your client is the buyer of property or the seller of property is not the issue the issue is making sure that all the parties to the transaction are fully aware of the scope of the services that the inspector is going to provide along with the exclusions that come with that as a general matter the contract has to identify the party's property address where the inspection will take place it should also include an address and contact information for your client in case you need to contact them after the inspection but before they go to closing on the house and of course we want to set forth the standard of practice that's going to be followed by the inspectors as part of the scope of work generally speaking with the standards of practice it's determined by what state you're working in many states like New Jersey New York Texas and others have very specific state regulations for home inspectors and many of those regulations speak to what needs to be in the inspection contract they speak sometimes to the timing of delivery of the contract and who can sign the contract in almost every situation the ideal person signing the contract for you is going to be the client that term client is defined on a state-by-state basis and certainly in your internachi Association standards of practice that is who you ultimately owe the duty for it's not sufficient to get a signature from the realtor or anybody else involved in the transaction now one question I always get from inspectors on that topic is well how do I know who the buyer or who the party of interest is going to be before we get to the inspection it's something you should ask when you're taking in the appointment and setting it you can gather a lot of information from that one phone call or email and you should use that to your advantage to make sure you know who is going to sign this contract before you get it to the client the SOPs or standards of practice are critical in the inspection contract I see a lot of contracts that are used by an inspector in a state that's regulated like New York but they're not citing to any of the New York standards of regulations in the contract if there's going to be litigation nor Arbitration related to an inspection you did the standards of practice that are regulated within that state that the state has promulgated for you to use during home inspections is going to be the standard of care that a jury or an arbitrator or a judge is going to use to decide whether or not you met the standard of care and gave proper service to your clients so it's always important that we have that information right in the contract if we're working in a regulated state we basically have three tiers of states in the United States with regard to home inspectors and regulations we have the fully regulated States we have the hybrid states like Pennsylvania where there's a home inspection law but they don't set forth specifically these standards of practice to use and then we have the unregulated States some of those include California to some extent in terms of what standards of practice you can apply in those states that are unregulated the contract can set forth that you're using the internachi standards of practice and the states that are fully regulated you should be citing to that state specific regulations and exclusions and so the hybrid states you need to evaluate the the law that exists in your state and determine whether or not that impacts what has to be in your contract those things are critical as I learned having written an inspection contract for all 50 states the other pertinent information pertaining to the standards of practice is what you're not going to do now certainly it's it's relatively easy if you have a state regulation or you're using the internachi standards to see exactly what it is you're not going to do as part of an inspection but there may be also other conditions or situations that arise in your particular state which you need to address in the contract for example we have some states where the manufacturer of drugs like methamphetamines is done on a pretty regular basis in homes in those situations certainly you as the inspector is not going in there armed with the requisite knowledge and training to determine whether or not that house was used for drug manufacturing but the damages that can ensue as a result of doing drug manufacturing in the house are critical safety issues the chemicals that are used to create those compounds embed themselves in walls and paint and any other building material that may be in and around where they're making the drugs in some instances we see critical changes made to electrical systems and plumbing systems that could affect the operation of those systems and certainly could affect my safety going forward if you have particular concerns in your state those are things you want to get out in the open in the inspection contract so that your client is fully aware at the time of the inspection what they're getting and more importantly what's not part of that scope of service now if you offer additional ancillary services like wood destroying insect inspections radon testing mold sampling those are the things you can put in the contract although I generally recommend that you use a separate contract for those services and the reason being is that the standards of practice are completely different and we don't want to confuse the issue in the contract or apply the wrong standard of care to the ancillary services you're going to provide [Music] you