B.C. ruling worries Ottawa home inspectors

Ottawa home inspectors say a legal precedent set in British Columbia is threatening their livelihood and could make home inspections more expensive.

The B.C. Supreme Court last week ordered a home inspector to pay nearly $192,000 to a North Vancouver couple for a faulty inspection.

The inspector's estimate of $20,000 to repair a house was less than a tenth of the actual cost of $212,000. The court ordered the inspector to pay the $192,000 difference, saying he'd failed to inspect the entire home and should have advised the couple to hire a structural engineer before buying the $1.1-million property in September 2006.

Hendrik Hymans, who owns A to Z Home Inspection in Ottawa, said he often has a good idea of what a repair will cost, but he keeps this information to himself.

"I think [the B.C. inspector's] first mistake was giving a price on work that he wasn't going to end up performing," Hymans said.

Hymans has never been sued, but he pays thousands of dollars in legal insurance and expects those premiums will increase because of the B.C. ruling. Ultimately, that means Hymans won't be able to continue charging $375 for an inspection.         

"If some other judgments like this come up and home inspectors get sued, you're going to be looking at a home inspection costing well over $1,000, which I don't think is a reasonable figure to pay."

Mark Hodgson, an inspector with The Full Storey Inc., has been sued twice out of 4,000 inspections he has conducted. While he didn't lose either case, he said the legal entanglements were stressful and expensive.

Hodgson said some homebuyers use their inspector as a form of insurance, bringing frivolous and even fraudulent lawsuits to cover the cost of renovations they knew they would need.

"There's so much litigation going on now in the home inspection industry that some of us just feel like a walking target, and it's only a matter of time before it happens."