It is common practice in the County of Haliburton for a purchaser of cottage property to hire a home inspector to inspect the cottage as a condition of the agreement of purchase and sale. If the home inspection report is not satisfactory to the purchaser, the purchaser may withdraw from the real estate transaction with the return of the purchase deposit without deduction or penalty. This condition may be useful because cottage construction varied in the area over the years. Some cottages were built in the 1950’s, or earlier, with different construction techniques than contemporary cottage construction and Building Code compliance. There were also the inevitable cottage additions which were connected to the original cottage building, by one roofing technique or another. And then, there is the foundation and crawlspace under the cottage for the purchaser to consider.
In terms of the law, a home inspector is a professional who must meet certain reasonable standards of care. These standards are the standards of practice of the governing home inspector’s association in Ontario. In brief, the usual home inspection is general in nature and is performed by a visual inspection only. A home inspector cannot be held responsible to the purchaser for a problem that is not readily apparent by a reasonable visual inspection. For example, if the crawl space under the cottage has no point of entry, the home inspector is not required to break an entry into the crawlspace to view it. The inspector cannot be found liable for what may be found there if the purchaser later opens the crawlspace and finds it to be damp and mouldy with rotting floor joists.
Two other important factors have been considered by the courts in considering negligence claims by a purchaser against the home inspector. A home inspection is not a Building Code compliance inspection. Commenting on Code related issues is beyond the scope of a home inspection. Such issues often require on-site construction details unavailable to the home inspector and intrusive, destructive testing to assess compliance. Secondly, a home inspection costs about $300.00. The courts have stated that what is reasonable in a visual inspection is to be determined by the costs of the inspection and the known level of expertise of the inspector.