When property valuers sit around the proverbial campfire and recount tales of inspections gone bad, they’re usually littered with stories of rabid dogs and vicious wasp swarms.
When property valuers sit around the proverbial campfire and recount tales of inspections gone bad, they’re usually littered with stories of rabid dogs and vicious wasp swarms.
I was a young valuer in the 1980s and the old pros in the firm were happy to dispense sage advice. The wisdom would always come with an accompanying parable to drive home their point. Here’s one told to me.
Back in the olden days of the late ’70s, full valuation inspections were a must, but the bank required no photos of a home’s internal condition – so cutting corners would have been tempting for some.
In this cautionary tale, the property had been sold and the new owner was moving in, so the road-worker tenants were pretty angry when they found out their lease wasn’t being renewed.
The valuation was proving troublesome as the angry tenants were road-blocking the inspection. Attempts to schedule an appointment had been made but no luck. They weren’t going to make it easy.
As such, the tenants were given notice to vacate immediately.
The valuer knew this area well – a cookie-cutter estate where most houses had been constructed by a handful of builders, with a fairly common set of floor plans across most dwellings… and the valuer had already seen inside plenty of them.
After arriving for yet another inspection of the now vacant home, and prior to the exit inspection by the property manager, the valuer discovered the tenants had left a parting gift – they’d padlocked the external access and bolted the doors. The keys were useless.
Here’s where the expert dropped his game. In frustration, he measured the outside of the house, gazed into a few windows, saw it was in average condition and the same style as hundreds of other homes in the suburb. Happy he could nail this one without going inside, he headed off to the next job, finally free of the problem property… or so he thought.
The banker contacted him a few days later. “Did you complete a full inspection?” the financier asked. “Of course!” our man replied. “Then why didn’t you note the concrete slab foundation in the lounge room had been jackhammered up and is now a pile of rubble?” queried the banker.
It seems the tenant had left a second present for the owner… and the red-faced valuer was left to confront some very serious questions.
As the saying goes, never assume… it makes an ass out of ‘u’ and me.
Original article: http://www.apimagazine.com.au/property-investment/a-parting-gift