Full Transcript for Using the Word "Further" In Reports

example, where we're doing this series on report writing, and I'm really glad to hear a lot of our listeners, Mike, have been pulling out their templates while these podcasts are playing with guests like you, and they start going through their template and changing things based on what we say, and that's really nice, but the use of the word further, like further evaluation, further investigation, etc. in our comments by a qualified contractor, you have a definitive opinion on that, Mike, can you tell us what that is? Mike Marlow   Right. We really avoid having to use or to kick the can down the road and say, go get further evaluation. So a year or so into inspecting, a very seasoned real estate agent pulled me aside and he's like, hey, Mike, you know, we like your reports. We like your inspections. You do a great job, but you know, why are you saying, you know, go get further evaluation on everything? And you know, of course, the stock response is, well, that's what they taught us in school, right? And he's like, well, you know, we hired you to tell us what's wrong. So you know, is what you're calling out wrong and need to be repaired. Or are you not sure? And you know for 99% of what we see, it's wrong, we know it, right. You know, a receptacle has an open ground, okay? Yeah, that needs to be fixed, you know, but he said, when you say further evaluation, a lot of times, it's the buyer that is now calling in electrician and HVAC or whatever and paying for it to basically finish up our inspection. Whereas if we say, hey, you know, this is broken, go get it fixed. Your roof is shot. It doesn't need further evaluation. It needs replaced, right? So just say what's going on and call for it to be repaired. Then we kick it over to the seller and say, fix your roof. So it really saves our clients money. It makes things quicker, easier, and clearer. The only time we use further evaluation is when a system is just so screwed up that we know there's a lot of problems. And we'll call out, you know, the problems that we see that are, you know, easily evident, and then say, look, you know, your electrical system was put together by Billy Bob with a six pack, and you need to get an electrician in here, and they are going to find more problems. Yeah, that's when we'll call for further evaluation. Ian Robertson   So there's two parts to what you just said there. One part that I agree with and one that actually I have a different angle on. So there's no right or wrong to our listeners here. So the first part that I 100% agree on is I do not use the word further anywhere in my reports. I have scrubbed it over the years, and every once in a while, I'll find it in some buried comment or some disclaimer that I forgot about or whatever. But every time I find it, I scrub it with bleach within an inch of my life. And the reason being is one time I was actually teaching a course to home inspectors, and I had that in my one of my slides, and then I had it in several slides

after that. One of the attorneys pulled me aside and said, you really shouldn't use the word further, because what that always denotes is that you didn't finish anything.  Mike Marlow   Okay.  Ian Robertson   And he's like, that creates negligence. So whenever you're suing a home inspector, as he explained it, you have to prove gross negligence, typically, anyways. So negligence is, oh, I missed that outlet. It's like, okay, regular negligence is regular negligence. It happens, you know, it's like, you can't sue a doctor because he put in 19 stitches instead of 20. I mean, you can try, but it's like, all right, that's normal negligence. Maybe he didn't have his coffee that morning. You know gross negligence is the home inspector shows up drunk or just blatantly skips one of the major systems of the house, even though he could have looked at it. So the way he explained it is saying further evaluation means you did not evaluate it completely. So in my state, actually, we have to be very careful, and we won't get into this, it's a side point, there's part of New York State law that actually prevents us from using certain terms. But if we're going to evaluate something, typically, we're going to evaluate it all the way or not at all, as he put it, actually, as him and a home inspector put it, was a very seasoned home inspector, we are defect finders and defect recognizers. So either evaluate it or don't, but don't give the impression that you started to evaluate it and then stopped, and somebody else has to finish the evaluation. The attorney's like, it creates so much liability. And I checked with another attorney on that. And he goes, yeah. He goes, listen, is it a defensible position? Sure. Can you stand in court and say, well, this, this and this, and here's the New York State law and here's, you know, Texas law and all that stuff. Yeah, you can do that at $500 an hour to your attorney. Mike Marlow   Right. Ian Robertson   Eventually, you're just gonna be like, okay, let's just pay up. He's like, just don't use the word further. He's like, just scrub it from your reports. And there was something in InterNACHI, and I couldn't find it. I think it was a video, which is why, probably why I couldn't find it. And they mentioned not using the word further for various reasons, among them being principles like that. Would you agree with that, Mike or? Mike Marlow   I definitely see where you're going with that and where the attorneys are going with that. So it's a wording issue on the comments of you know, going back to my electrical system, example, maybe something like, hey, there's multiple defects in this system, including these named defects, and recommend having an electrician evaluate and repair with expectations that there will be more found, something along that line, I'm just writing off the top of my head. Ian Robertson   Yeah, and you actually just brought out something that I appreciate. So the thing that I don't necessarily agree with you on, and actually, we have a podcast coming out on what we call neutral language in reports, and I find personally, from my experience and from what the attorneys and again, everybody talks about, oh, well, this is semantics. Well, that's what lawyers use, semantics. They're going to find every little word. And interestingly, I was talking with the guys at OREP at the InterNACHI convention, and they said that claims are on the rise. He goes, we've never seen this many lawsuits in years. They're like, we've had more this year alone. And they're like, we don't know why, and it's across the board. So do we get sued a lot as an industry? In my opinion, no, but apparently it's on the rise this year, so why not be more careful. Ian Robertson   And save your money for the increased premiums that are coming.  Ian Robertson   Yeah, exactly. We can spend that money on our insurance. But my thing is, with the neutral language principle is to not tell them what to do afterwards. In my opinion, it should always be go to a contractor afterwards. So for instance, and here I'll use the example that we use in that podcast, and everybody can just hear the example again. There was an inspection that I did, and it just popped up in my Facebook feed again, which reminded me of it. They had pipes going through the attic, which you don't do in the Northeast because we have cold weather. So they put it under the insulation, thinking that was going to be enough, and it wasn't, and there was a little bit of a leak. And I'm probably telling the story wrong, because I'm doing it off the top of my head here, there was a little bit of a leak, and, you know, people didn't figure it out, and then all sudden, it burst completely in the really cold weather and just flooded the driveway. It was out in the street, frozen water everywhere. So imagine for a moment that somebody says, there's a leak, roof needs to be repaired. He doesn't know about the pipes. Roofer goes up, there's no roof leak. So he's like, no, it doesn't need to be repaired. And then, you know, lo and behold, that pipe burst. Or another example is, you say a roof needs to be repaired, and then the roofer comes and goes, no, you can't repair a roof like this. This is too old. You have to replace it. Now we have an angry client saying, well, you said repair. When he says replace, or we say replace, and the roofer says, well, no, you can repair this. So how do you rectify that part? Because you do a lot of inspections, you and your whole team do a lot, how do you reconcile that? Do you have issues with that? Mike Marlow   I don't. I haven't had a lot of issue with that, with the contractors, the seller's roofer is going to say it can be repaired. The buyer's roofer is going to say it needs to be replaced, gotcha. So a lot of times we'll put in, when it's borderline, we'll put, you know, repair/replace, gotcha. So yeah, it is a little bit of a wiggle word, if you will, to say, hey, yeah, it could go either way. I'm not

a roofer, you know, get a roofer out here to tell you which way it's going to go. Ian Robertson   Okay, so that makes sense to me, and I just threw a whole bunch of word salad at you, by the way. So don't, don't mind me. That's what I do. I'm just like, my brain spins, and then I make a word salad, and then I throw it out there and see what sticks. And so don't mind me. Mike Marlow   Yeah, the pipe issue, that is a tough one, because the inspector knew there was water, couldn't at the time, I guess, figure out where the water was coming from. So, you know, where does it land? Does it, you know, roofer came out, did his job, said, yeah, there's no leak up here. Did the client just stop at that point and say, oh, the roofer said there's no leak. So the inspector must be crazy. There's no water. Or do they continue on like, okay, where's this water coming from? Ian Robertson   Yeah. And the way an attorney explained it to me is, if you tell them to repair a system instead of evaluate what the issue is, that it can limit your client. So if I say, roof is in failure, and I'm wrong, the lawyers like, it's really hard to get the other side to allow us to evaluate where the water is coming from. You know, sometimes people are going to be reasonable. Be like, yeah, of course, let's figure out where this water is coming from. But if you say now, evaluation of the source of water is recommended, that makes more sense. But I guess that, I guess we're saying the same thing because you already said, you know, if something is complicated or you don't know, then you ask for evaluation, like you're gonna have to cut this open, cut open the ceiling and look at where the water is coming from. Mike Marlow   Right. Yeah, because on ceiling, you know, when we see a leak on a ceiling, we're gonna say, you know, signs of leakage, fix it, yeah, doesn't, you know, unless I can pinpoint the leak, you know, if I go up in the attic and I see a hole. Okay, well, a hole in the roof, that's pretty easy to say, yeah, there's a hole in the roof right above where the leak is. Okay, yeah, I think we found it. But you know, if we go up in the attic and we can't get to that area, or there's, you know, a foot and a half insulation. We can't go digging through that. So maybe it is easier to just, you know, cut a hole in the ceiling there and go up, if you will. Ian Robertson   Okay, so I think we're actually reconciling really well on this in our thought pattern. So I agree with you that we were paid to locate defects. Mike Marlow   Right. Ian Robertson   That's really, no matter what we like to tell ourselves, that's what people pay us to do, to be defect recognizers, to look at the same thing that everybody has in that house for the past four years and us look at and go, oh, that's bad. That's broke. That's really ultimately what we do, which is kind of crazy. It's crazy to think about. We're defect recognizers. Mike Marlow   Yep, I tell people all the time, we have the best job, because we just have to find the problems. We don't have to fix them.  Ian Robertson   Yeah. Mike Marlow   But we do need to find them and tell people about them in a manner that they can understand and hopefully read the report and actually do something about it. Ian Robertson   Yeah. So I guess we're saying the same thing with the word further. There's pretty much never a reason to use the word further in a report, in my opinion, and it sounds like your opinion, too, and the opinions of the attorneys that I worked with that if you're going to say further, it just denotes that you didn't finish your job. Is it bad? And if you can't determine it's bad, it's like, unable to determine if this is really bad or not, because of XYZ, evaluation by a qualified contractor. Even then, we still don't need to say further evaluation. We can just say evaluation. They're going to start from the point that we're at anyways, and start taking things apart and do things that we can't to find those issues that are a little bit deeper. Further, in my opinion, is a word that we should use no further. Yeah. Like that one? Mike Marlow   Yeah, it is a wording, as you said, semantics issue, and I can see how a lawyer could beat you over the head with further. So, yeah, I'll be looking at my template and make sure that I don't, you know, look at how to reword things, to get the same message across, but without further. Ian Robertson   Yeah, well, you know, what's interesting is, I found that I'd never had to reconstruct a sentence with the word further in it, because when you just remove the word further, it just, the sentence continues without the connotation that something happened previous to it. So you can just, you know, look up the word further and just start scratching it out of everything, but the part about evaluation after that is the part that I have personally always used that to avoid issues, and it has saved me many times by saying, evaluation of the entire roof by a qualified contractor is recommended. But I also see your point, because I have had people tell me, I thought I paid you to do that, and that does get uncomfortable. So there's the semantics of it, and then there's the reality of it. Have you ever had clients book previously when you said evaluation by a qualified contractor, besides that real estate agent that you mentioned, complain about you telling them to find someone to evaluate it? Mike Marlow   For the short time we were doing that, we had a couple say, you know, yeah, man, we had to bring in a roofer, an electrician, whatever. And yeah, it cost us another, you know, so many hundreds of dollars. And yeah, at the time, it was like, well, you know, we pointed you in the right direction. But after that, agent told me what he told me, it's like, yeah, you're right. I ended up sending them out to probably more evaluation than they paid me at the time. So was I right on those issues? Yeah, there were issues there that needed to be fixed. So

could it have been a better experience for the client if they just sent over a repair request to the sellers and said, yep, have all this stuff fixed.  Ian Robertson   And that makes sense. It makes it a little bit more definitive for the client. Do you still try to protect yourself, though, like in your disclaimers, or maybe your rating system, well you use a TREC rating system, anywhere in the disclaimer saying evaluation of each of these items by qualified contractors recommended?  Mike Marlow   Yeah, we definitely have something that says that you know, any defects, you know, should be repaired by a licensed contractor. Ian Robertson   Right. But even the evaluation part, do you have evaluation of the defects anywhere in your reports?  Mike Marlow   I think I do in our introductory section that say, have everything evaluated, repaired, or at least estimates, prior to the end of your option period, which is our inspection period here in Texas. Ian Robertson   Okay, perfect. And I guess that's where yours and my path aligns on the second half of what we're discussing here today, is that the word evaluation is important, because while they're going to fix the thing that we saw, there could be other things that we didn't see, or to be perfectly frank, that we may have missed.  Mike Marlow   Right. Ian Robertson   So there's always, oh man, there's a, you know, an open ground on that outlet. And let's say we're one of those home inspectors that take the outlet covers off. I'm gonna admit it, if I think there's a problem with an outlet, or I think there's aluminum wiring in the house that they're hiding, I'm gonna pop a couple outlet covers off and just look on the side. Mike Marlow   But we have to for the aluminum. Ian Robertson   Yeah, well, it's a big thing around here, and I've had too many times where they replace all the wiring that you can see, and they didn't use those little purple couplers, but anyways, well, that's a different.. Mike Marlow   That's a whole different podcast. Ian Robertson   Yeah, a little different podcast.  Mike Marlow   Wire nuts, yeah... Ian Robertson   Oh my goodness. Don't get me started on that. But then you look and the neutral's loose, like, okay, well, we found the open ground, but now the neutral's loose, or maybe the hot wire is arcing and that's loose, or whatever is going on in that outlet, if we didn't say evaluation, the pushback from attorneys..So this was many, many years ago, when I first started, an agent said we couldn't, we couldn't negotiate the other stuff, because you didn't ask for it to be evaluated, so they fixed what you said. And I'm like, that's so stupid, and that's what got me on making sure that it's at least somewhere in my report, I say these items need to be evaluated and repaired, you know. And I'll do like that, repair/replace. I will never say, if I call for something very definitively to be repaired or replaced, I never ever put just one or the other. I'll always put a slash in there and say, repair/replace as needed, as determined by the contractor. Mike Marlow   Right. First off, it's faster to type. Ian Robertson   Yeah, exactly. Mike Marlow   And quicker to read, I'm looking here, I believe that Texas actually addresses that as well in the standard that everybody has to put in. Ian Robertson   Yeah, while you look that up, every state and every province, if you're regulated, is going to have their own standards. And if you're not regulated and you belong to one of the major associations, then we're still self-regulated under them, and we have to follow their regulations, and most of the time, for instance, InterNACHI actually recommends, and we're going to cover this in another podcast, it's going to be a three part, how you build a narrative. And it's always going to be observation, implication, and then recommendation, and the recommendation should always be, ie, depending on how you're taking mine and Mike's conversation here, either get this repaired or replaced, or get it evaluated, or kind of a slurry of all three of those. Personally, I like the slurry. I like the recommend evaluation/repair/replacement by a qualified contractor. I like to give my clients options. So now it's like, oh, okay, now I can do all three. Mike Marlow   Yeah, you're going to love this. Ian Robertson   Okay. I love pre-loving something. Mike Marlow   Yeah, our standard introduction that is in every Texas home inspection report under responsibility of the client. This is wording provided by TREC. It is the responsibility of the client to obtain further evaluation and/or cost estimates from qualified service professionals regarding any items reported as deficient. Ian Robertson   That's awesome. That totally smashed our whole discussion. Mike Marlow   It is recommended that any further evaluations and/or cost estimates take place prior to the expiration of option periods. Ian Robertson   That is awesome. Mike Marlow   Yeah. And it also says evaluation performed by service professionals in response to items reported as deficient on the report may lead to the discovery of additional deficiencies that were not present. Ian Robertson   So the one thing I will say, though, is Texas Real Estate Commission, I love you guys, and this is just my personal opinion, not the opinion of Inspector Toolbelt, I think your form is a wee bit silly anyways, we go so much farther beyond what the TREC form is as a home inspection industry.  Mike Marlow   Is that further or farther?  Ian Robertson   We go way farther and further. Mike Marlow   But yeah, I started off doing this in Maryland, and so of course, we had our own template that we had built over the years we were up there and coming down here, it was definitely an adjustment, getting used to reporting on the TREC form. Ian Robertson   Yeah, and I mean, it's very basic compared to like, my template in New York is going to be three times as large as the TREC template, 10 times as large. I have no idea.

It's way bigger and way more detailed, but, you know, you guys still do a fantastic inspection, but you kind of try to work it into the form as best you can. So I'm not downing the whole form, they have their own attorneys and lawyers and whatever, and they got their stuff then, but it's interesting that they use the word further, when the attorneys that I've talked to said, you know, don't use the word further, and me and you both don't use the word further. But they're like, hey, we're gonna throw it in there anyways. So Texas guys, you can ignore that. No further rule. Mike Marlow   We'll have to bring it up at the next inspector advisory committee meeting here in April.  Ian Robertson   There you go. Well, do you meet with the committee?  Mike Marlow   I'm on the committee, so.. Ian Robertson   Oh, well, I'm sorry for bashing TREC there a while ago.  Mike Marlow   You know, we work with what we have, and once you learn how the TREC template is put together, I can still do the same detailed report that, I was doing in Maryland. It's just, you have to learn how to write it. Ian Robertson   Yeah. And that's why I say you guys take a much larger inspection and try to do a very good job of putting it into the TREC form. I just find it, I like to unpack it. It's just like, okay, I'd rather unpack it and have multiple sections, rather than try to fit multiple sections into one. You know what I mean?  Mike Marlow   Yeah, I just use subsections, yeah. Ian Robertson   No, and that works. There you go. Subsections, yeah. So they use the word further. And I'd love to hear feedback as to when you bring it up to the committee, because it makes sense to me what those attorneys told me. They're like, all you are saying is that you didn't, that you started to evaluate and stopped so you had that further evaluation. So like that to us, that's silly. Agents have given us that feedback too. They're like, did you not finish evaluating this? I remember a newer agent, she's like, why did you stop evaluating it? I'm like, yeah, I can see where you got to that point. Mike Marlow   Yeah. It's a simple word that can, it makes sense in your head, but yeah, it can cause problems. Ian Robertson   So interestingly enough, and this would be a separate podcast, but every state and province has their own little whiskers, word whiskers. So in New York State law, for instance, it says a home inspector shall not perform engineering services. And we're like, no duh. That's obvious. But now, if you look up on New York State's website, the definition of an engineer, it says, any person who's going to investigate, evaluate, and consult and do a bunch of other things is considered an engineering service. So by New York State law's definition, we don't evaluate a system. And that goes back to, we become defect recognizers. All we do is recognize the defect, and we say, hey, this is bad, get evaluation by a qualified contractor. And the reason we do that in New York State is because, technically, saying you evaluated something or further evaluation, just said, hey, I started to do technically, an engineering process because it has to do with a home system, and then I stopped doing it, and now I want somebody else to finish it.  Mike Marlow   Yeah, that sounds real good.  Ian Robertson   And there have been legal implications. There was a guy that got hit hard. He's about an hour north of me. I know him, great inspector, but he did say, you know, that further evaluation, or something along those lines, and they brought out that law. They're like, you performed engineering services. And he looks, he goes, no, and everybody in New York listening to this goes, no, that's stupid. And then they read him the law, and he's like, oh, crud. He's like, that's stupid. They're like, it's stupid, but it's the law. Mike Marlow   Yeah, but you have a home inspection law as well that authorizes you to do that. So are you working as an engineer, or are you working as a home inspector? So that's the question. And hopefully.. Ian Robertson   And this is just specifically New York State, is that we are not defined as providing an evaluation and things like that. So here I'll read the section of the law. Yeah, it's 7201 2023, universal citation. It says definition of practice of engineering. The practice of the profession of engineering is defined as performing professional service, such as consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning, design, supervision, any of these in connection with any utility, structures, buildings, machines, equipment, processes, works, and projects wherein. Mike Marlow   So that's home inspection. Ian Robertson   So no, I actually teach a course on this. Depending on how anyone's definition of engineering is written, we recognize defects, we inspect and then write down defects that we find. That's why I say, at the basis of what we do, no matter where we are, is we are defect recognizers. We are paid to go in, recognize the defects, say that's bad. I didn't evaluate it, but I know it's bad. Get somebody to evaluate it, right? It's really funny how from Texas to New York, two completely different worlds, though, right? Mike Marlow   Yeah, I haven't looked up the definition of engineering here. I just stay within the guidelines of what we're supposed to be doing, and I rely on home inspection laws to cover that. Ian Robertson   Yeah, no, I think Texas law is written completely different. Mike Marlow   We're different, I think, in a good way. Ian Robertson   Yeah, and we're different up here, in not such a good way. Mike Marlow   Remember I grew up up there. Right by NY. Ian Robertson   That's right, I forget that. This whole podcast has digressed. But as we can see, as we talk about these report writing podcasts, it's really, once you get into the weeds of it, there's some basic principles that we can talk about. But once you get into the weeds of it, and the state level, on an industry level, with associations like

NACHI and ASHI, it really gets a little bit weedy. And very few of us, like you taught me something new, and I pride myself on knowing a lot of stuff, and that was a very obvious, you know, first paragraph of the TREC form that I just completely blew over that I've read 1000 times. Most of us don't realize the idiosyncrasies of our own laws. I will say, though, the word further is something that I still will never put in any of my reports for a liability reason. Now, Texas guys, from what I've learned, if you put that in there, I still think it opens you up to a little bit of liability, personally, I'm not an attorney, obviously, so talk to an attorney, but it just denotes that you didn't finish what you started. And I can see that being a case in court, you're sitting on the stand, you're getting sued for, you know, a million dollars, because this person's house, this was actually a real lawsuit in my area, house burned down. Chimney inspector, not a home inspector, missed an issue with the fireplace. House burned down. People had medical issues. They lost toes because it was the middle of the winter, and frostbite, and the whole nine yards, so there's medical fees, so they're getting sued for whatever, how many ridiculous dollars, and all of a sudden, you see in the report, further evaluation. You don't think that that attorney is going to say, why do you say further evaluation? At what point did you stop evaluating it? If I were a juror, if that went to a..I'd be like, yeah, that kind of makes sense. There's some stuff that the person should have done, it said, further evaluation. Did they get that further evaluation? But at the end of the day, they paid you to inspect that. Did you, why did you stop?  Mike Marlow   Exactly. Ian Robertson   Further is something that I will still keep off of my reports. Sounds like you don't use it either, except in the very first paragraph. Mike Marlow   Except where I have to. Ian Robertson   Except where you have to. Mention that to the TREC board and let us know how that goes. Don't tell them I made fun of them. Mike Marlow   I'll talk to the attorneys when I see them next month and ask them, the TREC attorneys, why is this in here? Ian Robertson   Yeah, good point. Well, Mike, listen, thank you so much for being on. This was a wild back and forth in a lot of ways, because there's, I learned something new, and I can appreciate your standpoint on it a lot better now. So thank you for sharing. Mike Marlow   Yeah, definitely, I have a couple things to go look back at too. Definitely. So pleasure. We'll have to do it again sometime. Ian Robertson   Yeah, thank you so much. And everybody, listen in on the next episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk. Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at info@inspectortoolbelt.com. If you’re enjoying the conversation, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button. Our podcast is available on all major podcast platforms. For more information on our services and our brand-new inspection app, please visit our website at Inspectortoolbelt.com. *The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.