nineninenine

This is a great tip!

I’ve never dealt with it on my own home, fortunately, but I used to work in real estate purchase/sale/title litigation and the amount of fly-by-night “inspectors” that would plague my clients with this garbage is truly shocking. I always recommend that home buyers hire a structural engineer, a plumber, and an electrician, plus other experts on a case-by-case basis, not a home inspector (or other types of rando inspectors), for their pre-purchase due diligence. Yes, it is absolutely more expensive up front than a home inspector, but it’s also WAY cheaper than buying a house with serious, possibly irreparable, structural issues that you don’t find out about until 2 years after closing.

The worst, though, were the tree removal “experts.” A huge number of them didn’t seem to care whether the house was still standing after they removed the tree that fell on it, and I ran across more than a few that had some truly questionable billing practices, if not outright fraudulent. I’m sure there are plenty of good ones out there, but boy it didn’t feel like it.

Good on you, OP, for doing the right thing for you and your home! I hope you have many happy and structurally sound years in it!

Honest question from someone ignorant on this topic – what do you recommend for a search engine other than Google?