what characteristics would you like your inspector to possess?
Stop and Think: Imagine for a moment that you are buying a house and are wisely considering hiring an inspector. Test your intuition—what characteristics would you like your inspector to possess?
Desired Characteristics of the House Inspection Service Now that you have identified some of the characteristics of a good inspector, which likely included competence, honesty, and objectivity, consider the key characteristics of the service he or she will provide. Are some of the seller’s assertions more important than others? For instance, you are probably not equally concerned with the assertions that there is no structural rot and that the lightbulbs in the master bathroom are working. Depending on what you are willing to pay, the inspection could theoretically range from the extremes of driving past the house to taking the home entirely apart, board by board. How thorough do you want the inspector to be? Do you want the inspector to issue a “pass-fail” grade based on a quick walk- through or would you like more details, such as careful examination of the furnace and air conditioner? As you can see, there are many factors to take into account in deciding on the nature and extent of the assurance service you want to buy. In Table 1–1 we have listed what we think are desirable characteristics of a house inspector and of the service provided by an inspector. Pause for a moment to compare your thinking with ours.
The concepts contained in Table 1–1 are in fact fundamental to most forms of inspec- tion (including financial statement audits). Certainly home inspections and other assurance
LO 1-2