Skipping Home Inspections: A Growing Trend with Disastrous ConsequencesSkipping Home Inspections: A Growing Trend with Disastrous Consequences In today’s competitive housing market, buyers are increasingly facing pressure to waive home inspections in order to secure a property. However, this decision can have disastrous consequences, as evidenced by the experiences of homeowners like Corey Wekenmann. Corey’s dreams of owning a brighter future turned into a grueling process. Despite waiving his inspection, he was unaware of the cracks in his home’s foundation that would lead to costly water damage and other issues. He is now facing a decade of renovations and repairs, adding a significant financial burden to his life. The practice of waiving inspections has become all too common, leading to a surge in horror stories. Homeowners are uncovering serious defects such as flooding, leaks, and code violations that can erode their quality of life and deplete their savings. Jaime Jakubczak, a retired home inspector, has witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of skipped inspections. He emphasizes that many sellers may be unaware of hidden issues or may simply not want to disclose them. However, he warns that waiving inspections can be a significant risk, especially for buyers who are already financially stretched. In the face of these challenges, homeowners who have skipped inspections have limited options. Legal recourse can be expensive and time-consuming, and there are few resources to help shoulder the financial burden. To address this issue, Jaime suggests a collective effort among homeowners to resist the pressure to waive inspections. By allowing homes to stay on the market longer, buyers can create a shift in the market and educate both agents and sellers. Corey’s experience is a cautionary tale for prospective homeowners. Skipping home inspections may seem like a necessary evil, but it can ultimately lead to years of stress, financial hardship, and compromised safety. It is crucial to prioritize thorough inspections to protect both your investment and your well-being.
TONAWANDA, NY — Getting the keys to your new home can be an amazing feeling, but the housing market can throw it all into disarray.
There are a number of things new and prospective homeowners can do if a skipped home inspection is the cause.
“I think there’s a little bit of humanity that’s been lost, that’s how I feel when I think about this,” said Corey Wekenmann, whose bright blue house signaled a brighter future for his girlfriend and three children. “This is the second house I’ve seen, and I fell in love with the old woodwork.”
But that quickly led to a grueling process of buying a house.
“I’ve been paying attention to what’s happening. Houses are being snapped up. I knew I couldn’t afford to get into one of those $30,000 to $500,000 bidding wars,” he said. “I went a little under asking price, despite the advice. They said they’d be willing to accept it if I waived the inspection, and (the agent) told me that’s pretty common in this market.”
It is all too common and the horror stories are piling up daily. It does not make Corey and others any less frustrated.
“A realtor, a lawyer, they all benefit. They don’t have to live here. They don’t have to go through the daily grind and have a lower quality of life,” he said. “If you thought you were getting something better than you are.”
More and more homeowners are having these inspections performed retroactively.
“Well, when I saw the house, I started looking around and I saw that there were cracks in the foundation, which worries me because that’s usually where water can get into the basement,” said Jaime Jakubczak, who helped assess the damage after the purchase.
Jaime is officially retired, but still very active with the Western New York Alliance of Home Inspectors. He has helped diagnose problems such as garage and basement flooding, leaks, not bringing the home up to current building codes, a $20,000 breaker box overhaul, and much more.
“A lot of people who are selling their home don’t want a home inspection. They don’t want to have problems with their home. They may have lived there for years,” he noted. “‘It’s fine for me. It’s fine for the buyer,’ but most of these home buyers are already at the top of their dollar in terms of their financial situation.”
Incurring costs that are symptomatic of the housing market and skipping inspections – what can you do when that happens?
“It depends on the individual and what their financial situation is,” Jaime said. “I would like to see them all be able to go to court and be taken care of because this is really a consumer protection issue. It’s really hard because it’s expensive to hire a lawyer, unfortunately.”
There is not much else to do other than extensive research into local programs to help shoulder the burden. Jaime says real change needs to happen across the market.
“To continue to say, ‘OK, if I can’t get a home inspection done, I’ll go to the next house until I can get one done.’ If there’s more consensus on that and houses are still on the market for a longer period of time,” he urged. “I think it will educate both the agents, the selling agent and the home seller.”
For Corey, it’s a whopping $170,000-plus home that he’ll spend 10 years working on to make feel like home, thanks to grants.
“Throughout the process I contacted attorneys, (but) I didn’t get any calls back. I contacted social services, which I’ve never done before, and I contacted the realtor and she offered to refer me to contractors that I couldn’t even afford,” Corey said. “I bailed.”
