We did not have a good experience with our inspection. We called days ahead to schedule an inspection before we put our home on the market and made clear that we would need the inspection report emailed to us that same night. We were having 100 people walk through the home the next day who were aware it would be available. The inspector, HUMBERTO LASTRE, agreed, specifically promised to get it to us that afternoon, and scheduled us.
Issue 1) He arrived late.
Issue 2) We had informed him when we scheduled that we would need a termite inspection at the same time. He had agreed and said it had been added to the schedule. It was not scheduled? we had to remind him when he arrived and he had to call a separate person to come in as he had not scheduled it.
Issue 3) After promising again that he would get the inspection report to us that afternoon, he did not send it by night. We called his cell after business hours to ask if we were going to get the inspection report. He was clearly out of the office, possibly drinking. We asked when we could expect to get the report, and he essentially hung up on us. We then began expecting that we would not get the report at all and that we would need to contact the company in the morning for our money back, as the report would be useless to us if it didn?t arrive on time.
Issue 4) The first ?report? arrived at 12:19am, and had no attachment. Finally, we got the actual Home Inspection Report at 1:10am. The inspector had apparently sent the report to someone else as well whose email address included the term ?cashbuyer?. We had no prior knowledge of this.
Issue 5) In the report, some photos are mislabeled, for example, a photo labeled ?Drywall cracking in Bathroom & Water Damage? is actually an entrance point for copper conduit through the concrete (not drywall) in our storeroom. The hole was not too big, and he had listed it as being in the wrong material, in the wrong room, and there was no issue with water damage.
Issue 6) Some repair estimates in the report seemed grossly exaggerated.
Example 1: His estimate for filling tiny cracks in the exterior stucco would cost $500-$1000, when fixing this would cost a can of stucco for $7, a plastic knife, and 20 minutes.
Example 2: His estimate to place a piece of wood as a transition in a doorway from a laminate to a tile floor was $250. These sell in Lowe?s for $15.
Example 3: It does not cost $500 to insert an outlet into an exterior plug which is already adequately covered from the weather.
Example 4: It does not cost $1000 to replace 8 kitchen & bathroom outlets with GFCI outlets (the ones with the ?Reset? button.) These cost $12 each at Lowe?s.
Conclusion: We were very disappointed in HUMBERTO LASTRE?S performance. He was very unprofessional. It may sound ridiculous, but we feel he may have given our home a more negative inspection report because:
1) we called to ask him when he was sending our report after he had agreed to send it hours earlier, when he clearly didn?t want to be disturbed, and:
2) he clearly knew an investor (this ?cashbuyer? mentioned above) who was possibly interested in buying the home, and felt the more negative report would either unsettle us or make us more likely to sell to this person. (When this investor drove by in a Hummer later, telling us he was friends with the inspector, we were not pulled in by his ?pitch? and sent him away).
If either of these scenarios are true, what happened is ridiculous and we truly feel we wasted $350.
It sounds like I would have had a positive experience if I had requested John Walters. I wish we had read reviews before scheduling. Don't waste your time and money.
While Dade Home Inspection seems to be a good company, HUMBERTO LASTRE is not trustworthy.
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