The existing licensing law is no panacea but there was a board of grievances to appeal to if you were improperly accused of misconduct by agents or unhappy sellers. On January 1st, the Home Inspector Licensing Board will be disbanded even though the members have served well and without pay. Inspectors will face an unknown appointee, possibly a real estate agent (we have done this in the past), who will decide our fate without the help of a board of peers to guide him. There is no balance in this system.

On January 1st, 2012, Illinois Inspectors can be fined $25,000 or physically sent to jail for inspection omissions, according to the new law. This reeks of overkill. This threatens all inspectors whose primary judgement is based upon visual conditions.

From the beginning, the Inspector Licensing Law was created by the real estate community. After funding the law, they appointed a real estate agent as our board chairman. Once again inspectors are being manipulated to “pass all houses” or risk losing their businesses.

The 2012 licensing changes are unnecessary and fail to serve the public interest. The imposed $25,000 fine is intimidating to inspectors who already want to support the public trust while protecting consumers. In addition to representing the inspection point of view, the Board serves to prevent 3rd party control over inspections and standards. It is because inspectors serve as a check to the real estate sales process that we were licensed initially. The licensing standard that I wrote with Representative Erwin and brought to the State would have home inspectors overseen by the Department of Professional Regulation — the same place engineers are licensed. Here is where we belong — away from the control of those who stand to make thousands of dollars with each sale.

ALL HOME INSPECTORS’ JUDGEMENT AND OPINIONS ARE BASED UPON VISUAL STANDARDS BY LAW. THEY ARE INHERENTLY LESS ABLE TO BE CONFIRMED AND LESS ACCURATE THAN JUDGMENTS
MADE WITH ENGINEERING. INSPECTORS WILL BE CULPABLE IF ENGINEERING STANDARDS ARE APPLIED.

Today, home inspectors can be fined up to $10,000 for violations of the licensing law and receive misdemeanor citations. On January 1st, 2012, they can be fined $25,000 per offense, an amount that would put all of us out of business. We are also liable up to a Class 4 felony for negligence in performing our duties. Why this severe punishment for trying to help Illinois homebuyers become aware of what they are buying? This new law does not further the goals of Illinois Home Inspectors or the home buying public. It does not restore faith in the real estate process. It delivers the process to the power brokers.

The Illinois Inspector Licensing Act was written and mandated within a visual standard. This gives home inspectors permission to add visual clues together while defining large scale systemic problems. The threat of a multi-year prison sentence discourages “systemic” inspections where inspectors have to add visual clues together to complete their analysis. These clues, by nature, won’t be supported by engineering where the clues will have to be confirmed using destructive means. A visual exam is inexact and will not stand up to an engineering analysis. Are we to go to jail due to this dichotomy in the law? We need the visual standard and its flexibility to assess asbestos, for instance, and point our clients in the right direction for more information.

I believe State Representatives and Senators have lost focus of the needs of the people of Illinois. Do they think that threatening the home inspection community with time “in the big house with other convicted felons” (Class 4 Felony punishment) will help Illinois citizens? Is there anyone out there reading this that doesn’t see the connection between bad real estate sales and the recession? The real estate community, not the inspectors, need a more punitive licensing standard.

The way to restore the economic viability of the real estate industry is to restore faith in the real state process. Home Inspectors represent the key to restoring the faith. Home Inspectors need to be able to tell the truth without worry of spending our retirement in jail with murderers and rapists while being someone’s “honey.”

We challenge the real estate industry to “step up to the plate and provide clarity in the home buying process and demand equal representation for buyers.” Don’t punish the home inspectors, the very people who can fully represent your interest in home buying. For those of you who are courageous, call your State Representative and Senator and encourage them to say NO to the rewriting of ILCS 225 441, the Illinois Home Inspector Licensing Act. Let’s work to restore the deserved faith in the real estate industry for buyers and sellers.

“Friend right?”

This “friends” system has injured real estate

THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!

Home Safe, Smart Home Buyer Seminars
Presented by Tom Corbett of Tomacor Incorporated

What: A free, fast paced seminar with (pending) ASHI continuing education credit that is jam packed with information for anyone interested in buying residential, commercial, or industrial properties. Get all of the information you need to negotiate prices and reap financial rewards! 27 year veteran building inspector, Tom Corbett is renowned for his no nonsense, straight forward style and you won’t believe how much you can learn in just one hour! Tom will cover topics such as “Choosing a Team of Advocates” and “Negotiating Strategies”. If you’ve ever thought about purchasing property, this is a seminar you don’t want to miss!

When/Where:
Buying Foreclosed Property Without the Pitfalls
Saturday, October 22, 2011 12:00pm-1:30pm
Chicago Public Library – Logan Square Branch
3030 W. Fullerton Avenue
Chicago, Illinois, 60647

Thursday, November 10, 2011 6:00pm-7:30pm
Chicago Public Library – Roden Branch
6083 N. Northwest Highway
Chicago, Illinois 60631

Become a Home Detective: Ten Distinctions to Avoid When Buying a Property
Thursday, December 1, 2011 6:00pm-7:30pm
Chicago Public Library – Roden Branch
6083 N. Northwest Highway
Chicago, Illinois 60631

Space is Limited! Please email coco@tomacor.com to RSVP today!

Why: The market is down but YOU should be up! Tom Corbett is committed to educating the public about the myriad of issues which can arise when buying, living in, owning, or selling a home. This education, in turn, empowers people to make educated decisions regarding their property.

During this economic crisis the housing market is suffering, and many are pessimistic about buying and selling properties. After 27 years Tom Corbett has learned all that you need to know to get quality property at affordable prices. He would like to share this wealth of information with the public, empowering them to purchase property and, in turn, stimulate the market.

How: Tom Corbett of Tomacor, Inc. will speak at a one-hour seminars on topics relating to buying properties. His goal is to empower the consumer by giving them the education and the tools needed to make informed decisions about purchasing within the real estate market.

This hour and a half long seminar, part of our Home Smart, Home Safe seminar series will include all of the important steps in locating a property, picking a team of advocates, inspecting the property (demanding specific conditions be met by the seller for the inspection) and dealing with the monetary negotiation involved with the seller over the deficiencies discovered. It will also include powerful suggestions on picking an attorney, a home inspector, an appraiser and finding the right mortgage.

Conflicts of interest will be discussed and a clear and powerful direction will be defined for the buyer. Negotiating strategies which reduce the purchase price of the home will be emphasized, as well as the overall quality of the home and local building codes, providing a broad and clear framework for the buyer to make his/her choice. It is understood that the marketplace is full of ambiguity. This ambiguity will be removed, reducing the buyer’s choices in relation to clear and fundamental questions; affordability, condition, conflicts of interest, choice of neighborhood, and environmental issues will be discussed.

We see this seminar as critical for anyone who plans to buy any kind of residential property whether it’s foreclosed or not. We guarantee that the home buyer will reduce their purchase price or make powerful choices to walk away from the property based upon the information discovered during this presentation or during the inspection. After attending this seminar attendees will be equipped with the knowledge to avoid being forced or fooled into a property purchase saving them money, time and sanity.

Will you be there?

Here are the details:
Buying Foreclosed Property Without the Pitfalls
Saturday October 22, 2011
3030 W. Fullerton Avenue, 60647
12:00pm -1:30pm
Event Website

Today I received a complaint about Tomacor’s service. “Oh my god,” I thought—Then, I read further into the complaint. Okay, now I get it. Another unhappy home seller who chooses to cover asbestos piping with tape and then explain to the home inspector that the brown water mark throughout the basement did not represent a flood line but “the remnants of her Irish Wolf hound’s shaking after a bath.”

Although we are sympathetic to every building owner and have rarely seen any community work as hard for its money as real estate agents do, confusing the facts, belittling the information and hiding the evidence are not good ways to sell property. In fact, they are tactics which lead us into this real estate recession in the first place. Frankly, I think it is time to restore the integrity of the marketplace.

“Location, location, location” usurped by “condition, condition, condition.”

The problem in the real estate business is its basic lack of integrity. The problem in the real estate industry is too many people have been sold poor quality overpriced homes. The industry has left hundreds of thousands of people in bankruptcy or foreclosure based upon ignorant and short sided sales practices for quick profits in a short term economy.

Qualified professional home inspectors intent on full disclosure will bring the real estate economy back full circle to the vitality it once enjoyed. Now is the time for home inspectors to work their hardest to represent their buyer’s interests. People are buying homes for their families. They aren’t simply investing. Buyers everywhere are at risk for the possibility of a further declining market especially if significant repairs are missed during the inspection. Every home needs repairs and if those repairs are misdiagnosed or not seen, the result will be to encourage the downward economic spiral which we are already in. Homebuyers deserve a good deal.

If you are in the market to buy a home or income property, spend the money to get a professional property inspector who quotes budgets for repairs. Hire someone your real estate agent doesn’t know or is upset about. Check his/her credentials thoroughly. All Illinois home inspections are visual in nature. Better inspectors are more experienced, the best inspectors include budget figures for repairs. Make sure you can afford to repair the property before purchasing it. The property’s condition can be more important than its location. At Tomacor, we have 27+ years of experience and include pricing for all of the repairs needed.

Her first purchase involved reassurance from her agent that she did not need to see the common areas. The agent was sincere, matter-of-fact, and low key. She was convinced he was right. During the inspection, yes, she hired another company, not ours; the inspector was told by the selling agent that there was “no access to the basement.” Being a well-trained, skeptical and financially strapped consumer, she thought she had better get a common area inspection. When her home inspector refused and the seller’s agent complained complete ignorance concerning the key or even the location of the door to the basement, she was pissed. She left the inspection, talked to her lawyer and got a 1 week extension.

That following week, I showed up at the condominium with the client and a very nervous selling agent. She handed us the key after pointing out the door to the basement and made a speedy retreat. We discovered the basement was full of rats and rat tunnels. Somehow, the light bulbs had been removed from the light fixtures in the basement and the only illumination we had in the 2,000 square foot space was my flashlight and the light from a setting sun. Even without the lights, the noise created by the scurrying rodents was unmistakable. There must have been a hundred of them on the loose in the basement. My flashlight discovered large piles of earth leading directly to the sanitary sewer line. In addition, other mounds of earth, or what appeared to be earth, turned out to be moldy piles of rat feces, which we both avoided like the plague (I’m thinking of Typhoid Mary and the black plague in medieval Europe). We could not run out of the basement fast enough but we were careful not to catch our shoes in the open holes and raw sewage on the basement floor. Her deal went south, and 15 years later, she still remembered the deceitful real estate agent. I mentioned that I had recently worked with him and she stated she had also “interacted with him” after her first experience.

Is this what you want? Is this what you deserve when buying a property? Will this kind of mentality restore people’s faith in the real estate buying process during this real estate buying downturn? The answer is no. We need more disclosure, better educated buyers, and ethical real estate agents instead of those that prey on naïve and inexperienced home buyers. Finally, we need tough, thorough and professional home inspectors that demand access to common areas, rather than the real estate agent’s rolodex for referrals. Now more than ever, with home inspectors hungry for work during this recession, they will be willing to do anything to hold the deal together and get paid. Avoid the real estate agent’s referral for a home inspector when buying a property.

Call Tomacor for a thorough, unbiased, professional inspection.

Ten minutes later, we were in the room, the walls were covered with fresh drywall and paint. With the agent out of the room, and not able to see the small amount of damage I inflicted on the new wood trim, I stuck my screwdriver inside the door jam and pulled the trim away from it. With the assistance of my 100 watt flashlight, I found thousands of little white insects crawling over each other. The seller had earlier failed to sell the “termite house” and was now covering up the problems that were disclosed. The buyer and I left the house. The deal was dead; again. Another lucky buyer bought it.

Carpenter ants and termites do tremendous damage to buildings in the United States yearly. Millions of dollars are spent trying to eradicate their destructive behavior while we attempt to kill the colony. In almost all cases, the treatment is unsuccessful over a five to ten year period. This is because the insects are so pervasive and adapt well to changing environmental conditions and toxic chemicals; They know how to survive.

Termites are moisture dependent so they create their own habitat with mud roofs. If you enter a building with wood framing, you can check for termites by looking for mud tunnels on the wooden structural walls or on the surface of the wood. These mud tunnels look like half round cigarette ashes and they usually begin at the ground level and work their way up over the building’s foundation and wood assembly. When the termites inside the tunnels find an area that they want to eat, they go into the lumber and devour the soft summer wood grain.

If you have seen lots of insects flying around the inside or outside a building within the past weeks, you probably have a termite infestation. If you treat it right away, you can remove the insects and the colony before they do major damage to your building.

After 25 years in the industry, Tom Corbett has learned all that you need to know to get quality property at affordable prices. He will be disclosing industry secrets and doling out no nonsense advice at a free seminar entitled Home Buyer Ju Jitsu 101. If you have any interest in purchasing property this is one seminar that you will not want to miss!

Home Buyer Ju Jitsu 101

If you’ve ever thought about purchasing property, you’ve GOT to attend this seminar!

This fast paced, free seminar is jam packed with information for anyone interested in buying residential, commercial, or industrial properties. Get all of the information you need to negotiate prices and reap financial rewards from a 25 year veteran building inspector, Tom Corbett. He is renowned for his no nonsense, straight forward style and will reveal industry secrets, tips, and advice on negotiating the price of your dream property so that you can afford it!

You won’t believe how much you can learn in only 2 hours! Tom will cover topics such as “Things your real estate agent won’t
tell you”, “Why your real estate contract doesn’t help you”, and “ways to reduce the price of your dream home by up to 10%”. If you’ve ever thought about purchasing property, this is a seminar you don’t want to miss!.

Event Info
Thursday, June 10, 2010 6:30pm-8:30pm
or
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 6:30pm-8:30pm

Space is Limited!! Please email nwilliams@tomacor.com to RSVP today!

1. Everyone knows that stainless steel appliances are state of the art in the construction and development industry. When shopping for a new home or condominium, look for stainless steel appliances. They paid more for them!

2. Don’t forget to bring a hard rubber hand ball or marble. Roll it along the floors in several different directions. Does it pick up speed while moving away from you or stop and then roll back directly into your hand? If the ball is thrown out 5-10 feet the chances are that you have a reasonably flat or level floor.

3. Check the flooring for large gaps between pieces of the flooring material. Any gap is unacceptable for new flooring and so a floor without evidence of gaps, especially one 3 or 4 years old is a terrific sign. It probably won’t gap. This hardwood floor installer was a smart guy.

Plumbing

1. New homes, condos, and rehabs should be equipped with booster pumps at the cold water main. It’s so exciting for Tomacor inspectors to discover these pumps and note that they are working at maintaining the building’s water pressure. This $5,000 piece of equipment is worth every nickel if you’re buying a top floor condominium or if you want good water pressure in your master bathroom shower. Even though the building code is a minimum standard, these pumps on the cold water main are often times not installed.

2. A second, simple indicator of quality plumbing involves nothing more than turning the hot water spigot in the tub on and off in fast succession. These better quality condominiums will take the test without any noise while the lesser quality will make thumping or banging sounds in the walls. This problem is called water hammer and is usually corrected by opening the drywall and repairing the piping.

3. Finally, warm shower water at the shower nozzle should not begin to fail or drop in their water pressure when the hot water in the sink or vanity basin in turned on or the toilet flushed. Bring a flashlight and examine the water pressure in the shower. A few of the recently built condos have compensated for this potential drop in water pressure by installing booster pumps or bigger water service lines. It’s a good thing if your water pressure doesn’t drop.

Look for these things and other quality assets during your condominium purchase.

In a market where the real estate agent typically tries to fit you into a mortgage that represents 40% or more of your income, any additional major expense could push you over the edge financially. Don’t play fast and loose money or the possibility of significant Capital Expenditures for your condominium or single family home. Obtain access to all common areas during your inspection and only hire inspectors that insist on common area access! The actual condominium unit may only have a stained carpet or a broken garbage disposal, but the million dollar special assessment is lurking, waiting to be discovered in the broiler room, at the rooftop, and along the building’s concrete or masonry façade.

Chicago has been called the “hog butcher to the world” by contemporary historians. If you can’t obtain three years worth of board meeting minutes before you purchase a condominium, or access to the common areas including the roof and boiler room during your pre purchase inspection, just think of all of those animals that lined up in the stock yards and received the knock-out punch. The next thing they knew, they were spinning around on some wheel with their front legs tied above their heads. Don’t let this happen to you during your next real estate purchase. Get the information you need!

1. Concrete: Recently finished concrete with minor marks in the concrete surface where a brush or broom has been dragged over the concrete as it began to dry. Concrete should be flat and pitched away from your living areas. Well done concrete sidewalks include “control joints”, usually asphalt and cellulose, every 15 to 25 feet. These are required for professional standards, yet they are rarely installed. In addition, some concrete contractors finish the sidewalk surface with an epoxy product or another product designed to maintain the hardness of the finish by chemically bonding deep in the concrete.

2. Masonry: High quality masonry walls less than 30 years old will exhibit flashing and weep holes (plastic and rope) visible above every door and window in the building. In addition, all masonry joints should be toweled or raked smooth displaying a tight fitting joint without loose sand granules. The joint should be concave with the outside surface voided into the building. Gaps in the mortar of any kind are not tolerated and cracks in the masonry are not acceptable.

3. Sellers who happily share information: Homeowners with property in good condition will be happy to share with you all that they have done in the past three years to keep the property in good condition. Happy homeowners usually sit on top of quality work. The ones that hide often times have something to hide. Better buildings will have a current receipt illustrating how the building has been sealed or maintained over the last few years. Access to the roof and common areas will not be denied.

4. Proactive Board members: We have witnessed multiple condominium purchases, which appeared to be heading toward the scrap heap, saved when the unit owners or the board president politely received the new buyer along with his inspector and explained the planned and funded repairs for the building. A proactive group of condominium owners is often times the best source of advertisement and referral for those selling their condominium units.