By Susie Nordqvist
Kiwis are being warned to do their homework on building inspectors.
Alarming new figures suggest thousands of homeowners are purchasing substandard pre-purchase building reports.
When Karen Goodger and her husband put an offer in on a property in Wellington, they did so to secure their children's future.
“We looked at several properties [in Wellington],” says homeowner Ms Goodger. “It was the only one that ticked the boxes for us. My only concern was the era.”
That era was the early 2000s, when the extent of the leaky homes problem nationally was becoming clear. So they made their offer subject to a building inspection.
“I looked at this company. They did tests for moisture levels and everything so I thought that would be sufficient.”
But the building inspector failed to pick up that the property was in fact a leaky home.
“We were facing financial ruin as a result of this. It felt a bit like we were on a runaway train heading over a cliff and no way of getting off this thing.”
Karen Goodger was able to get out of the sale, but a homeowners lobby group says too many building inspectors simply aren't up to the task.
“There are some very good ones, but from our experience the majority of them are lacking the competency to do the job well,” says John Gray, president of the Homeowners and Buyers Association.
It says more than 90 percent of the 6000 pre-purchase building reports it has seen in the past five years have been flawed, and that's because the industry is not controlled in any way and building inspectors don't have to be licensed.
A new clause in sale and purchase agreements states pre-purchase building reports must be carried out by a "suitably qualified person".
“I believe they should have gone further than that, to actually stipulate that it needs to be done by a professional,” says chartered surveyor Peter Harris, of Babbage Consultants.
In the meantime, the advice is to always use a registered building surveyor or chartered building surveyor and make sure the inspector has indemnity insurance to cover legal costs and damages if things do go wrong.
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