Jets Gone Wild

Ever wondered what happens when something goes wrong during a home inspection? We pull back the curtain on a recent incident where a jetted tub malfunctioned during testing, spraying water that our inspector quickly cleaned up. What should have been a minor hiccup turned into a revealing lesson about real estate transactions and the importance of professional representation.

The situation exposed how an unrepresented seller can become vulnerable to pressure tactics. Despite the inspection agreement specifically stating "no request for remedy," the buyer's agent made exaggerated claims about water damage and bombarded the seller with demands for repairs. When we returned to the property with moisture meters and thermal imaging equipment, we confirmed what our inspector had reported: everything was completely dry with no damage whatsoever.

This episode highlights the critical role professional representation plays in real estate transactions. Without an agent to filter communications and enforce contractual terms, sellers can find themselves facing unreasonable demands that contradict their agreements. We discuss why For Sale By Owner properties present unique challenges and how sellers can protect themselves by working with reputable agents. 

Home inspectors work with hundreds of agents yearly and develop insights into which ones operate with integrity. If you're planning to sell your home, consider asking a well-respected local inspector for agent recommendations rather than attempting to navigate these complex transactions alone. Remember that thorough inspections benefit everyone involved by preventing surprises and potential litigation – when buyers know exactly what they're getting, the entire transaction proceeds more smoothly for all parties.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Jetted Tub Incident
• 3:35 Handling Client Communication
• 6:10 Verifying No Water Damage
• 8:24 Why Sellers Need Real Estate Agents
• 12:45 Finding Trustworthy Agents Through Inspectors
• 15:10 The Value of Thorough Home Inspections

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hey everybody, it's Jim, and of course Laura's here with me.

SPEAKER_02: 0:04

Hi, everyone.

SPEAKER_01: 0:05

Alright. We as a home inspection company, we're not perfect. So something happened the other day where one of our spectros was doing an inspection and the jetted tub, which I'm not a fan of anyway. They're just big garden tubs, but they have jets in them. It's kind of like a hot tub built inside your house. They get used a couple times when you first buy the house. Then after that, no, they really don't get used that that much, it seems. But anyway, turn it on. The water shoots out, and guess the floor and the walls wet, maybe the cabinets. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02: 0:44

That's my understanding.

SPEAKER_01: 0:45

Yes. Yep. And so Spectre turned it off, had trouble turning off. The button wasn't working correctly on the jetted tub. It happens.

SPEAKER_02: 0:54

So we're thinking like a pressure valve or something within the jets was off, and that's why it was shooting the water out so forcefully.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01

Yeah, it could be that, or the jets were pointed up. Spectre has lots of experience, so it was over. Obviously, not high enough, or needs to be a lot higher than normal. The most tubs, because maybe the pressure was turned up on this thing, or something's wrong with that. The jet. Who knows? But anyway, water got sprayed over. Spectre finally gets a shut off, had to hit the button, uh turn off button repeatedly to finally shut off.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30

Practically in the hot tub trying to cover the filter that was pulling the water into the jets to make them jet to slow it down. So he freeze while he's pushing the bike.

SPEAKER_01: 1:45

So anyway, but it's good. So he got shut off, dried it up. We got the sham wows, we got regular towels in the vehicles.

SPEAKER_02: 1:53

Apparently, sham wows are amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:55

Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is a shout-out for sham wow. They really do a good job. I make sure all the inspectors have shamwows to clean stuff up. Because sometimes, man, just run a sink, a house that's occupied, it just leaks immediately. They either never use that sink and it and it leaks, or they're not a bit more. Yes. So things happen. Anyway, main thing is our inspector got it all dried up, probably within 10 minutes, everything's is all dry. So, however, we get and during that time, it sounds like the buyer, and this house is basically a for sale by owner. So buyer comes in, sees the mess.

SPEAKER_02: 2:43

He sees the inspector starting to clean up. And he's out there grabbing his house and he comes in. So that's when the client got there.

SPEAKER_01: 2:52

Yes. So anyway, we got it cleaned up. Things happen. It's definitely the first time things have gotten wet from leaks from various all kinds of different things. Yeah, all kinds of different things.

SPEAKER_02: 3:04

And it won't be the last.

SPEAKER_01: 3:06

Here's the thing, though. This seller basically for sale by owner.

SPEAKER_02: 3:13

The contract also was no request of remedy. That's it. The the inspection was for informational purposes only.

SPEAKER_01: 3:21

Yeah. So what so Laura, you talk to the buyer's agent. What is going on now? And while here we well, we we we run a very good, very reputable award-winning home expension company. So we end up getting hold of the seller. I think we had her information in order to get into the house because it's for some owner.

SPEAKER_02: 3:46

Let me back up and start over on this one because she comes in later. So I send an email explaining what happened, you know, it failed during testing because of blah, blah, blah. And I sign your and my name to it. Owners of the company, right? You'd think that would be something important. Well, apparently not, because the buyer's agent came back and said, you know, he's been referring us for 10 years. He doesn't want any of this. He wants a manager to actually call him. Well, first of all, he hasn't referred us for 10 years because he hasn't used us for 10 years. We don't even have him on our system until 21. There was a period of like a year or year and a half or two years where he didn't use us at all. So maybe three years, maybe maybe like two and a half.

SPEAKER_01: 4:37

So far cry from 10 years.

SPEAKER_02: 4:40

Right. So we we have a gentleman that we work with that when somebody only wants to talk to a manager, they won't talk to us. This person will call and he'll help work things out. So this gentleman called and got a huge number of stories from the buyer's agent that apparently included the fact that this panel had been taken off of this hot tub.

SPEAKER_01: 5:09

But no, wait, wait, no, stop. It's not a hot tub, it's a jetted tub. Yeah. But the panel that gets you underneath the tub to look at the mechanics and the pipes for the jets.

SPEAKER_02: 5:20

Was impossible to take off. Our inspector did not get it off. So the client lied about that. The client and the buyer's agent then apparently tried to pressure the seller into doing a bunch of things. So the seller sent a message to us saying, Hey, can someone please call me? I'm trying to figure out what's going on. So the same gentleman that talked to the buyer's agent and um gave her a call and talked to her, who apparently is very gracious and very sweet. And so what ended up happening was he said, Well, how about if we just come out and check and see? Make sure that it's dry. We'll do thermal imaging, we'll do a moisture check for you and let you know what's going on. She's like, That would be perfect. So you and I go out yesterday.

SPEAKER_01: 6:10

Yep, and we we checked out nice lady, very sweet, the adorable kid. Yeah. Well, so we took the moisture meter, everything's dry. Like around the tub, the wall, cabinets, they're all they're all like just like the inspector said, it they they dried it all up within a few minutes after the incident, and then before by the time they left, it was all completely dry. Well, you got air conditioning, air moving around, but yeah, it was completely dry. Inspector never let water sit anywhere for a long time.

SPEAKER_02: 6:46

No, because he knows better.

SPEAKER_01: 6:47

But we also took thermal imaging to check the ceiling underneath the tub. Underneath the tub, no anomalies. Which has nothing to do with it.

SPEAKER_02: 7:00

Which has nothing to do with this, but that's the only thing that showed up on thermal.

SPEAKER_01: 7:03

Yeah, now yeah, so it had nothing to do with it. I don't think it's insulation is missing, just a little gap between this wall. But and then we looked outside, and because the buyer said the water is dripping off the soffits. Yeah, it was raining all day. Just assuming that the water leaked so profusely and so long that it leaked all the way to the exterior of the house. It was raining the day on the inspection, so no, and and nothing thermal imaging showed nothing. So, yeah, Seller was happy that we did that for her, so she knows there's really nothing going on. It was totally taken care of.

SPEAKER_00: 7:46

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SPEAKER_01: 8:13

I mean, every house has water issues, but what the little lesson behind this is the seller really is doing this for sale by owner. She did, and if you're gonna sell your house, I really recommend that you have a real estate agent to represent you and a good reputable, reputable, honest real estate agent. Because I I'm I'm not what I can give any names, but this I don't know who's stretching the truth. Probably you don't you don't know exactly, but the story the seller is getting from the agent regarding what the buyer is saying does not match up to what actually actually happened and the situation there.

SPEAKER_02: 8:59

So not sure if it's coming from the buyer or from the agent because they were trying to make the seller do a whole bunch of fixes and repairs and this and that and the agreement was nothing, no no no request rambling, just informational purposes. So they've as far as I'm concerned, they've already voided the contract, and then on top of it, the buyer has never contacted us, he's never followed up on anything, it's just been his agent, and he never paid it. So I just canceled the inspection. I mean, what what am I going to do? I'm I'm not gonna call and hound somebody.

SPEAKER_01: 9:34

No, and do we don't have to do work of everybody. No, we don't. Especially if things untrue are gonna be said. So that's right. So we're done. If you're if you're gonna sell your house, though, you need to have a real estate agent representing you. Ask a home inspector, ask a home inspector for uh agents that they would recommend because home inspectors deal with hundreds of agents every year, and they know which ones are uh very above board and honest what's going on. But if you the big value of working with a real estate agent is your house gets listed on the MLS, which means other agents can find it easily and therefore show it to buyers.

SPEAKER_02: 10:23

Well, there's also a caveat to that. There are some agents out there that will take like a flat rate fee and put you in the MLS, and then that's it, that's where their responsibility ends. Correct. That is not what you want. I am talking that you need an actual honest to God agent representing you, protecting you.

SPEAKER_01: 10:45

Yes, if you do have hire a broker to list you on the MLS, all right, at least you're gonna get some exposure there, okay, for the marketing purposes, but you don't have any agent who's on your side um ready to call bullshit on the buyer's agent and and support you because you you really do need to have aid. Because there are there's a lot of legal and paperwork that you need to have have written out disclosures, you need to have all that done, and you need somebody who is on your side. We end up being well, our home especially company, we're we're neutral, right? It doesn't matter if it's the sell house sells or not. We get paid for being you know truthful and giving good reliable information. Right. It doesn't matter the house sells or not to us.

SPEAKER_02: 11:33

No.

SPEAKER_01: 11:34

So we're the unbiased one. So we actually kind of were in this situation, we are on the seller side protecting her from outlandish claims that there's water ruining everything in the house. It seems like a huge exaggeration. It was just it was just the math. It was just a couple minutes, and it was dried up within just a few minutes. Yeah, I can't imagine. The inspector's probably I just know I just and I know this, but I know he's just panicking within spraying uh and he runs out, get things to dry it up. It's probably completely over in like three minutes. It's probably all completely over in two, three minutes where he thirty thirty seconds feels like forever when it's hitting the wall and you can't get it off. I mean, how many times does it take to push a button? I mean, like just you can push them like ten times in like three seconds, just keep pushing the button until it shuts off. It probably felt like forever for him, but it's probably a total of three minutes, and he was already out there with a towel cleaning things up. So anyway, but you need to have an agent on your side. And if you do not know an agent, call us who you trust, yeah. Call a home inspector in your area and they will tell you some agents that they they trust. Or give them a list of two or three agents and go, hey, which one of these would you pick? That's another way of doing it. Now you can always get a home inspector and go, well, you know what? That agent recommends me, so I'm gonna send send that person. You can get that. But home inspectors, if they give bad information, they lose money, they lose their reputation, they're they're they're just a general overall agents. Not every agent is scummy, not every agent is great. Majority of them are good. But so you could get who an inspector who could lean towards sending you an agent that sends them business, but if that inspector is a really thorough inspector, that's probably a different then that's a really good agent, then that they're gonna they're gonna recommend, or that they rec that who recommends them. Lord, any other thoughts about this?

SPEAKER_02: 13:52

The seller did say that the buyer's agent had been like calling and texting and blowing up her phone trying to get her to make concessions or do something. So just to reiterate, that would not happen if you had an agent because they would have to go through your agent, and your agent would stop that.

SPEAKER_01: 14:14

Oh, that's yeah, you imagine me in a selling, they got some agent constantly calling you, and I would say nag, and that's probably what it feels like nagging you to go against a contract, the agreement you already put up, and have you pay you have you pay out money to fix things that I don't know. I really haven't looked at a report other than just that that bathroom section. But it looks like a beautiful home, very well taken care of, looks like inspector loved the house.

SPEAKER_02: 14:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:41

He said it was in really good shape. But anyway, I think it's about it for this one. If you're selling the house and you're gonna buy a house, you need to have an agent representing you. If you don't have an agent, talk to a local home inspector that has a good reputation and ask them who they recommend, or if you have a list of agents, ask them who who are the top two that they would they would pick. Something like that. They're good source for find uh agents. That's for that's for certain. We've had agents don't recommend us, and we've had other agents tell us, yeah, the one agent didn't ask me why we're why we're using you because you guys find too much stuff. You know what? That's our job is to find stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 15:26

Our job to find things protects the agent, it protects the seller, it protects the buyer, it protects everyone in the transaction because the client buying the house knows what they're getting walking into that house. There's no surprises, there's no potential litigation because they walked in, knowing full well what was going on in that house. If you had a thorough inspection company that does their job well.

SPEAKER_01: 15:51

Yep. All right. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Bye bye.