Electronic Signature Licitness for Property Inspection Report in European Union

How to eSign a document: electronic signature licitness for Property Inspection Report in European Union

all right welcome to class everybody my name is ben gromicko from internachi that's international association of certified home inspectors and this is our class about how to write an inspection report the class is going to be video recorded so if you happen to miss it or you have some technical difficulties don't worry I'll have it all recorded and you can watch it later and I'll send you a link to the video recording so today is june 20th 2017 and if you need to contact anybody at internachi we're all at that contact page Nachi org forward slash contact and if you wanted to watch the video recording we are at nazi TV n achi TV and today we are having a class at the house of horrors at the internet a school at internet headquarters in Boulder Colorado for the first time there's some extra sounds because hi Oh inspector outlet is our ecommerce store and they're packing up boxes of inspector tools and goodies and marketing materials is going out the door so don't worry about that above my head is ductwork and we have a few inspectors visiting today so people are going through the house of fours as well we had over 400 people registered for the class from all over the world Argentina Australia Canada Nigeria and Poland and just about every state of the United States registered for today's class so welcome everybody in Boulder Colorado we have a school and this is where we're teaching from today and I'm standing next to the roof sections at the house of horrors at internachi headquarters in the Internet's schools so if you want to check out more of it what kind of classes we have it's the doors are always open you're always welcome to come by anytime take a self-guided tour through the house of horrors bring your software or your a checklist and practice performing home inspections on the house it's an entire house built under our roof in the school it's filled with a thousand defects so you try to find them if you want more information go to that URL Nachi org forward slash school and I like to play a little video for you so you have an idea of the house so that's where we are and to the side that's where our roofs sections are for the asphalt shingles if we walk around the corner there's the slate section and we have an overhead electric service with a drip loop or missing drip loop that could be a defect and there's all kinds of roofing with covering materials of all different kinds there's wood shingles and shakes and tile we talk about underlayment there's our classroom so we hold about 40 students there we'll have a class coming up of five day hands on how to become a home inspector class soon this is the Attic above the garage and there's the unfinished attic space with the ductwork defects and the structural defects with the trusses and there's the great to see the crawlspace living room has a fireplace there's our kitchen there's a utility room gas-fired furnace oh there's an electrical room we also have a laundry tub in there since co-ed Pacific and GE and there's our bathroom and and then we can take a look at the garage walk done it's a two-car garage the garage doors are functional but they have problems and there's some extra equipment in the garage and fire hazards and firewall breaks and there's a crawl space to do you get on the crawl gear and look for defects in the crawl space it's all messed up in there and these are our stucco walls and structural walls so we talked about how to build a wall studs we shoot them with infrared we make them leak there's a classroom there we spray water at the kick-out flashing on our stucco walls and see where the water goes and there's a house there the deck on the front there has 37 major defects we're partnered with inspector outlet and it's our trial that brings out a bunch of tools for the students to use and we also give everybody a t-shirt so let's go back up to the deck for the students and this is where we're having class today at my little desk there and we're going to go over a few things we're going to go over the standards of practice we're going to talk about what is a home inspection report I'm sure you know and we have four different types of defects we'll go over some definitions they're optional for you to use talk about which software to use mobile software you may know I'm a fan of because it allows you to write the inspection report as you're performing inspection and it also helps you not only speed up your process but reduces the amount of mistakes that you could possibly make I used to write the inspection report at the end of the inspection in the evening after dinner putting the kids to bed and then you kind of forget what you saw eight hours prior well when you have a mobile device like this iPhone you can write the inspection report as you go and you can follow your guide as you go as well so you don't miss anything and also speeds up your inspection process there's three parts of a home inspection narrative or the paragraph that you write and we're going to conduct a roof inspection and write an inspection on this roof here but first let's take a poll so I like to keep you engaged so I hope you can see that but the question is is a home inspector required to find all the defects in a house all right getting a lot of responses and there you guys yep Laurie you're right but let's keep going keep voting keep burning the polls in progress still 75% of you have voted coming up to 80 almost all of you voted okay let's see the answer and yeah so a home inspector is not required to find all the defects in a house which actually is surprising to many home buyers let's talk about that later about finding defects actually you're only supposed to report upon material defects and that material defect is defined in the standards of practice it's a particular type of defect the most important defect but if you if you think you have to find all the defects in a house you're wrong right what you have to do is report upon all the defects that you both observe and deemed to be material in nature so let's start with the standards of practice oh and there's three things I'd like you to think about when I'm learning how to write inspection report its its inspect described in a report the standards are practice uses those terms a lot those three terms inspect describe important SPECT means - what do you inspect where you have to inspect this you have to inspect that you're not required to inspect this that's inspect describing is describing what you're inspecting them inspecting the three tab shingles it's a ridge and reporting upon things that are our problems defects that need correction and further evaluation so let's go to the stands of practice this is the foundation upon which you can build your inspection process as well as your home inspection report and it's broken up into sections for section here in the standards practices roof so if you go to roof it says inspectors shall inspect it also says inspectors shall describe it also says inspectors shall report so inspect describe report is all throughout every section of the standards of practice inspect describe report and so should your inspection report your inspection process as well should reflect the standards of practice the inspection process how you inspect should be based upon what you're required to do in the standards our practice and you're required to inspect describe and report upon vows right so let's go up here and it says what a material defect is most important defect the material defect gone over a little bit it's something really serious with the house that has an adverse impact on the value of the house or poses an unreasonable risk to people in the house a deck that has a collapse that's imminent right it's going to fall because the deck flashing is missing and there's rot and the ledger board isn't even attached and that deck is just about to collapse so you don't want anybody to walk on it and you want to put in your report as a material defect this is something I observed and deemed to be material and that should be in your inspection report as well and your inspection report is defined as something a report shall identify in written form at defects with particular systems and components defined by the standards of practice that are both observed and deemed to be material by you so you don't have to find every defect report upon every defect it's those defects that are both observed if you didn't see it you can't report on it so both observed and deemed to be very serious material so think about those three things inspect describe and report there's a definition of a home inspection report we already went over that so again the standards are practice guides you through your inspection process what you observe what you're required to check a check and take a look at and your observations are communicating your inspection reports so those are the the dots that you need to connect the standards our practice is the basis upon your inspection process and your inspection in the process then actually just communicated in written format in your inspection report so they are all connected then we call it coherence it's an interconnection between all of those components in a logical sequence or order so that when you are performing an inspection based upon the standards of practice that is reflected in your inspection report and so when someone's looking at your inspection report they reflect back on how you took them through the house it's a reflection of that right and it's also based upon the standards which is actually the foundation it's the absolute minimum of how you perform an inspection so you've got the standards which guides your inspection process which is communicating your inspection report and there is the fourth dot to connect which is a marketing piece it kind of sums it all up provides you a chance to give your client a lot more information than your inspection report can write so in this home maintenance book of internachi's now that you've had a home inspection it kind of sets the expectation that you've done your job you performed an inspection written report now it's their time to take over the home maintenance of the house and each section of this home maintenance book reflects the standards of practice so it's all coherence it's it all goes together so I would say that's one way to write your inspection report with coherence make sure everything you do starting with the standards of practice is a mirror image of each other right so there are four types of defects and we've defined them but you don't have to use these definitions we just thought it would be helpful for you to think about how to describe certain things that you have seen observed in your inspections and the first one is defined by the stands our practice it's a material defect so a material defect is a specific issue with a system or component of a home that may have a significant adverse impact on the value of the property or poses an unreasonable risk and the example is that missing ledger flashing on the deck with an imminent collapse a major defect is a system or condition of a system or component that renders it non-working non-performing not functioning or unsafe and it requires a professional contractor to further evaluate and correct a minor defect is the same kind of problem but a homeowner may be able to fix it and an example would be a broken GFCI there's wiring from maybe a thermostat replacing the old manual thermostat with a programmable one you don't really need a contractor for that you can do it yourself voltage wiring no one's going to get hurt but a major defect would be a hole in the roof missing shingles you need a contractor to come in and fix that problem so of the things you want to do and your inspection is inspect and then describe the condition and also communicate the severity of the problem so a material defect that's number one that's going to hurt somebody the major defect needs to be corrected by a contractor the minor defect could be corrected by a contractor or a homeowner and a cosmetic issue is really a superficial flaw doesn't need correction but you may want to note it an example would be a carpet stain so those are four types of defects you may want to use in your inspection report it's not required now a report narrative is that paragraph or a group of sentence or sentence or group of sentences underneath or describing that seeing which you observed that you inspected identify described maybe even recommended correction and further evaluation of there's three parts of a narrative first part is to inspect it you said as to describe that you inspected it so you want to use past tense by the way and we'll go over that in just a second so the first part of that narrative would be I did this I inspected I inspected it from this area from this vantage point I got on the roof or I inspected it from the crawlspace you identify that is a gas-fired heating system or a three tabs shingle roof so it's all about inspecting and the second part is identifying that it's a defect or not so if it's done actually can you see that it's actually a toilet plunger so that's a defect right I describe the defect there's a toilet plunger actually being used as a vent pipe flashing on the roof and it's a major defect it's not cosmetic but it's a major that you need a professional contractor to come out and fix that problem right I I described it with severity how how bad of a problem is it and that's where those four definitions may be useful to you and the third part is needs to be corrected and further evaluated by professional or maybe a licensed electrician if you want to get a little bit more specific on who should come out so three parts to a report narrative and for my inspection which we'll go over I have a video of the inspection that I did this morning on this roof using software I chopped up my system into these sections so these sections reflect the same as the practice is what I'm required to inspect they're also in my inspection report I want to have like a chapter heading roof roof system and then sections under that chapter it's kind of like writing an outline your main idea your title and then these sections and subsections right so I want to talk about the roof access the roof type the age I'm not required to guess the age by the standards of practice which is a minimum I exceed this stanza practice roof covering with flashing skylight structure gutters and downspouts any actively extending structural problems any group defects so that's coming up in my I want that in my inspection process now how do i Garin how do I ensure that I'm following the standards of practice and inspecting everything while inspecting the system how do I know that I'm going to be able to inspect every component of a roof before I get off my ladder and down to the ground you gotta have something with you it's either in your head or carry a mobile device with software and it's it has those sections in it right and it tells you what sections you you missed right and that's what software does for you so let's do an inspection let's see if I can pull this up for you guys we can do an inspection here so you can come inside your crowd and start so start off with done taking pictures and you take the cure your client actually sound good my client not to be my cover and then highly type r amigo it's Benjamin and you can type in your time so 9 a.m. to 12 noon and then I just did a couple of sections here so I have a roof section a chimney an exterior in karate section so I'm going to do to do and there is a topics of subtopics or components of the system so back here is my roof system right these are my systems and here are my components accession of such essentially so I want to talk about the roof access that we've type I take a guess on the age then there's the roof covering where all the really the inspection takes place and then the booth flashing the skylights the structure that gutters and downspouts and any comments about active leaks or root defects and I get this from the standards of practice because I want to comment upon how I looked at the roof I'm not required to walk upon any roof surface and also I want to describe a few things so let's start with the roof excess so inside the software basically checking sentences that I've already written these are narratives that are already written I wrote them by hand in the software itself and the blue little tags are like short notes for me to figure out I don't have to read the entire sentence I just pick out with the note so ground is where I'm going to inspect the roof problem and it says I inspected the roof covering materials from the ground level this was an inspection restriction because I could not see everything related to the roof system from the ground I did my best be sure to ask the owner about the roof system particularly about prior roof leaks so that's what I want to say that I inspected the roof from the ground I also could choose let's say spectroscope which says I use the spectroscope to inspect the roof and if I wanted to move on it's basically just tapping to the next section so I go to roof type so what kind of roofing shingles don't have lip covering materials asphalt shingles so asphalt shingle let's see what it says the type of roof covering materials that I observed past tense can be described and describing I'm expecting describing and reporting as asphalt shingle that's good but maybe I want to take a couple pictures so here's my picture and simply I like to take them horizontally the screen there that's on my screen is will stay vertical so I'll use that photo and then I can scroll up and take another picture maybe of my hand you know mean well I'm always putting my hand in the picture and then there's another shot those three pictures will be in the inspection report at this section but let's say I wanted to edit this picture let's say I want to put some text on the picture it's off not a big fan that because it takes a lot of time to do that but I'll show you how to do it let's see I like a black background white text I inspected the asphalt shingle materials period they are three tabs shingles period and I want to add that text to the picture and there it is so I've got some text right on the image itself and I can save it so that first image has text on it but let's say I want to add a caption to it as well and these are the shingle materials that are on the front of the house there you go and it's as easy as that so if you wanted to add a photo to a particular section and then this grotto add descriptions to that photo you can easily do that let's say I'm going now to estimated age they're a few years old with covering well I want to say that I inspected the leaf so see what that is I inspected with having materials very simple statement or you could say I didn't inspect the food covering materials I have two layers so I'm going to add that as a potential defect there and then I have many defects that I observed I have a lifted nail and some poor installation right and some weathering there's granules in the gutter dry watermarks I actually have those now let's add some photos see how fast I can take in here when we use that photo [Music] big thumbs use that photo and I want to take this one here because there's a missing single here use that photo and then whip this up take that photo let's say this photo doesn't really have a good description about what I'm looking at so what I can do is I can also say and also comment with arrows so I'm usually drawing arrows as you can see with my finger right there and I can save it and I'm done I really don't use a whole lotta arrows because I usually put my my hand and finger right in there now if I wanted to do a video I can also do that let's say I'm inspecting and I'm not going to use my software quite yet so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to snap as fast as I can let's say ten photos and I'll show you how to add them in the report two three four five six seven eight nine and the last one will be a video and I'm just going to pan across like this okay hey what's up okay now I'm going to add those pictures in the report so with tons of Pro let's say they were all under the roof flashing I'm going to take a picture like that and then I can actually search for those pictures and add them all in with simple clicks of the button so it's going to here I'm gonna scroll down so there's the ten photos I talked in the video so I'm just going to choose in one two three four six seven eight nine in the video is going to take a few seconds for my iPhoto to engage but I can choose it in about a minute it'll take boom so all of them were just added to that section as fast as that so I added nine photographs to this section of my report with just a few seconds so you can with this software you can add photos as you go or you can take a bunch of photos with your device and then add them into a report at a particular section with simply a click of a button that's pretty easy again if I wanted to add arrows I could if I wanted to add some text underneath this photo this is the picture of a 8 that's connected to prevent on the roof I could do that I haven't typed anything yet all I've used are my fingers skylight so inspect describe the port so I inspected it skylight I have some comments about how it's not accessible I have cracked glass actually and a fastener problem so take picture of that I have cracked glass and a fashion problem how about this only a lot of students miss that what else could I have tellers and downspouts I inspected the gutters I can describe them but also have a missing down stock and now this one now that I'm going to take it medically so the photo is not vertical in my expression port and say let's just cancel that let's get back to active leak well have any active leaks no active leaks and or any loop defects well here's those definitions so here's material defect major defects minor defect or cosmetic defect so let's say I have a material defect if I have a material defect I should really describe it and here it is I observed indications of the material defect which is a specific issue with the system implement of a property that may have a significant adverse impact on the value of the property or posing on diesel licks clip protection and further evaluation by a professional contractor is recommended so I'm going to put that there and I'm going to take a picture just to make sure that pictures in there and I'm not even going to tag it underneath the picture this is a material defect Oh so I need to edit very quickly this immaturity effect so that is me inspecting a beef with this software now I want to show you what it looks like and so I'm going to think it I'm going to upload it to the cloud there's me oh wait I didn't take any video at dinner so let me disconnect this here because my airplay tends to crash I'm going to take a video so I'm going to go route covering and I am going to take a video so I click the video button and here's the video let's see that oh let's see focus yeah so I'm going to do a video I'm doing a video of the roof flashing area or with cover any problem and I'll just say we have a bunch of she knows that we walk over right I'm going to use that video I'm also going to use another video let's say um I do and that one was also good I can actually delete that video yep did another date so these are three Ted changes and they're not properly fastened at the defect right there and that's on the front of the house once I go to do another video of me and that was and that was your home inspection and on Big Bend inspections from Boulder Colorado by now that video is going to be put into my inspection report and I'll show you what that creates luck because you may be asking how does the video show up in a PDF well I'll show you so I'm done with that inspection so I'm going to upload this inspection and I just fast forward I can show you after you upload what that looks like so you upload the report to the cloud and let's see if I can get it for you I get an email as soon as you upload it see if I can bring it over so home inspector Pro gives you an email you click the email and now the report is in the cloud and you want your report in the cloud or PDF form but I like it in the cloud because I'm video I can see video being used in inspection reports coming up all the time it's going to be video based really reports so remember that front photo of myself that's my client here's the second page which is a summary of all the defects that I inspected and reported and they're all in red and I like this because it tells you what page the defect is on and under what section that's really nice here's the roof section here's a disclaimer a lot of people ask me what do I say under each section so here's mine feel free to use it if you'd like it says we are not professionals we're not roofing professionals feel free to hire one before closing as home inspectors we do our best to inspect the roof covering materials when a short time that is allotted to us we inspect the roof covering materials gutters downspouts yada yada we're not required to inspect these things this is not an exhaustive inspection of every installation detailed the root system ing to manufacturing specifications or construction codes it's virtually impossible to detect a leak except as it is occurring or by specific roof tests which are beyond the scope of a home inspection and ask the seller for more nations about the roof performance especially prior roof leaks so here's a couple of the narratives I don't if you remember but I chose two narratives in my inspection report using a mobile device two sentences I inspect the roof from the ground and I use the spectroscope and here they are here then I took a few pictures number I added text to the picture there it is there I also added a caption under that one photo and I estimate the age so this is the online version of the report and I liked it but that your client will receive and I like it because defects really jump out anything in red is bad and those are the defect narratives and here are all of my pictures that I took remember a few were amost of them were horizontal a couple were vertical and here's that video so your client can watch the video that you took during the inspection there's a couple other videos that I took I mean if I was doing inspections now I would be using a ton of video be shooting probably most of the inspection with video writing the narratives as fast as I can and adding those videos to the inspection report loved the pictures the pictures look great and there's my arrows they're fastener problem the skylight glass is missing there's a downspout members of vertical picture so that's the inspection report that's available on the cloud service which is where I would put all of my inspection reports because I would nowadays I did a lot of video way back when and made a difference in my market distinguished myself with that type of brand but I think video would be a great way to distinguish yourself in your market and now you can have videos embedded in your inspection reports when you upload them to the cloud and while your clients to download that electronic report with embedded video so that wasn't that bad I kind of like that because I'm done with the inspection report maybe my competitors tonight will be writing their reports at night staying up late being all groggy the next morning so that's a competitive advantage that I would have over my competition because I invested a few more dollars so that I can write inspection reports as I'm inspecting and I can take pictures and add them to the report as I'm inspecting in a video as well and I help ensure that I don't make mistakes because I'm following the same user practice which is reflected on the checklist and I'm following while performing and inspection so I can't miss anything because I'm using a checklist in my hand and you can use an iPad as well or a tablet any mobile device and then the reports are really great because they're robust with a lot of pictures because it's so easy to add a ton of pictures they follow their coherent with the standards of practice and my inspection process and my home maintenance book because it's it's following the standards of practice as a foundation and it's guiding your your software it helps you guide your instructional process and produce a report that is similar so you're your client has a really great experience there's nothing very different as everything is just about the same they have the same feeling they read your home maintenance book and it's written and grouped in sections just like your a home inspection report and your Animus correctional report communicated your inspection process that they went through the house with you and it's based upon the same as our practice so which software to use there are a bunch of software out there I like the ones that where international members get discounts I always recommend those I was using home inspector Pro today and it's a great software if you want to find some software at a discount go to this URL nacho org forward slash everything and go to step 11 we'll go there now this is 15 steps to be successful at being a home inspector step 1 is join internachi because after you join internachi whole world of opportunity opens up to you then you get trained and certified but if you scroll down to step 11 we have a link here to inspector outlet our e-commerce partner and they have software from all the vendors in the world who provide exclusive discounts to international members and they are significant so I'd go there and then there's home inspection report checklists there's a link to some checklists that you would be interested might be interested in here's a basic internachi home inspection checklist at the top and then there's pool and spa and checklist radon mitigation inspection checklist wood destroying organism inspection check electric ones but it just goes on and on even pet safety and these checklists are important because you can add them to your software template and use them on your device while performing an inspection so you don't really have to think it's all right there on your checklist on your software device you can't go off on a tangent and get lost you're always focused on the standard or the guide or the template or the checklist that you use so I highly recommend I'm going mobile we also have some inspection report samples from inspectors and and members of internachi there's a report writing course on defect recognition and how do you how would you inspect that defect if you came across it during your inspection and there's classes about performing home inspections and writing reports there's sample narratives free narratives just to get you going on how to write your narratives in your inspection reports provided by ouchies Kempton Shepard we have a report library of narratives that are available we have a free software for the home home energy score we have software for that we have illustrations at our gallery to put in your inspection report so if you want to have a nice image of oh let's see about chimney height clearance so we have an illustration for that you can grab that illustration if you're a member stick it right in the inspection report don't worry about copyright issues if you're a member of internachi you have thousands of colorful high-res illustrations to make put icing on the cake to make your inspection report look really good and then there's an article about using the phrase no visible evidence you really shouldn't say there was no visible evidence of blank in your inspection report we recommend using instead the phrase in this format I did not observe any indications of and then insert your defect during my inspection this was an article written by internachi's legal counsel mark cohen helping you write your narratives to help reduce liability so that you can write your narratives in plain english so that everyone clearly understands what you're saying we also have advice about writing your inspection reports in the past tense so that it's clear to someone reading your inspection report later long after you perform the inspection that that inspection report was during the time of the inspection in the past and things change after you perform an inspection and write an inspection report if your report is in present tense it somewhat conveys to the reader regardless of time that you are commenting upon the house as it exists today if during the reading of the in special report so it's really good too it's a good practice to write your inspection reports using past tense and there's um three functions of report narrative and that's all in step eleven of this URL at natural forward slash everything alright are there any question we don't have a whole lot of questions how risky is it to estimate the age of the roofing materials right so it's about exceeding the themes of practice really the question about exceeding the stands of practice because I estimate the age of the large systems the roof HVAC and the hot water source and I do that because I think my clients just just want that information it's not required of a home inspector to do that ing to the standards of practice it's actually specifically stated that I'm not required to do that but remember the standard practice is a absolute minimum for every home inspector and I exceed the standards of practice for every client so you have to be comfortable with it or not and I phrased my estimates so that I feel like I'm protected and what I say and everything I do as a member of khe can I use your picks in my report right you have to be a member of internachi to use the materials that are freely provided to Internet you members and you can join in and achieve for $49 a month or 499 dollars a year all right so that was our course our core class on how to write an inspection report thank you very much my name is ben gromicko from internachi that's the international association of certified home inspectors I hope you enjoyed yourselves and we're at Nazi TV for the video recording of this class and registration for upcoming classes and all the classes are free and online and anyone can attend so I'll see you next time bye everybody