If you received one or more items marked as unsatisfactory on your report, your insurance company will require that the item be corrected prior to insuring you. In rare circumstances an insurance company may choose to insure you with an item marked unsatisfactory, but will do so with restrictions on how long you have to repair the issue, and they may not offer full coverage — excluding the areas your report has marked as unsatisfactory until the repairs are completed.
If the home has never had a 4-point inspection before, receiving an unsatisfactory report the first time the inspection is performed is not uncommon. Most often it is typically over something minor such as a double-tapped breaker or a missing discharge pipe on a water heater’s TPR valve. On other occasions it could be something major such as polybutylene pipes in the home requiring the entire house to be re-piped, or certain brands of electrical panels deemed to be fire hazards. There are several brands that fall into this category — including Federal Pacific (Stab-Lok) and Challenger — but in the Cape Coral, Fort Myers, and Southwest Florida area, Challenger electrical panels tend to be the most common.
There are three important things you should know about repairs.
#1: Your Inspector Cannot Make the Repairs
A Florida home inspector cannot make the repairs required to make your 4-point inspection report satisfactory. Licensed Florida home inspectors are not licensed to make repairs. In the event a Florida home inspector holds multiple licenses (electrician, plumber, etc.), they still cannot perform the repair if they are the ones who performed the inspection.
Florida Statute §468.8319(1)(f) explicitly states that a person may not “perform or offer to perform any repairs to a home on which the inspector or the inspector’s company has prepared a home inspection report.” That is a statutory prohibition, not a guideline. Violating it is grounds for disciplinary action under §468.832, which can result in fines up to $5,000, probation, suspension, or revocation of the inspector’s license.
The statute also includes a related provision at §468.8319(1)(g): an inspector may not “inspect any property in which the inspector or the inspector’s company has any financial or transfer interest.” So both directions are covered — they cannot inspect a property they have a stake in, and they cannot turn around and profit from repairs on a property they inspected.
While this statute applies specifically to licensed home inspectors, the same conflict of interest exists for any professional who performs the inspection. Profiting from repairs on a property you just inspected undermines the integrity of the inspection regardless of what license you hold.
This is also why reputable contractors do not inspect their own work. They typically refer customers to or hire from a pool of local inspectors for an independent review.
#2: Make Sure Your Repair Professional Is Licensed
When it comes to having repairs performed, always ensure the person doing the work is licensed in the state of Florida. If you do not already have a licensed professional you trust, ask your friends, family, and neighbors who they use. Your home inspector is often a good resource as well, as they typically receive feedback from their customers on the companies they have used for repairs. A home inspector offering referrals should try to provide more than one company name, and they should not receive any compensation for that referral.
A note on follow-up inspections: a follow-up inspection to verify a repair or upgrade would not qualify as compensation, as you were the inspector’s customer to begin with. While you are under no obligation to use the same inspector for the follow-up, a repair company steering you to a different inspector for the follow-up — without you requesting it — would be an unethical business practice.
#3: Be Cautious of Commission-Based Repair Services
This is strong advice: stay away from commission-based repair services. These services tend to upsell customers on hundreds and even thousands of dollars in “upgrades” that the customer did not need. Repairs that should have cost $300 end up exceeding $4,000. This is more common than you think. It is the author of this site’s opinion that there is zero need for salesmanship when it comes to making repairs. If there is something dangerous, that is different. Having a commission-based sales structure incentivizes dishonesty so the salesman can put food on his table.
Commission-based sales have their place. For a new roof, it makes sense — the knowledge of the different options and how they could benefit the customer are involved. But that is not the case with the simple replacement of a single breaker or a toilet supply line.