Why won’t Home Inspectors give repair costs or estimates?

This comes up a lot. It’s frustrating on both sides of the conversation. It’s easy to say “well, that’s just not what we do,”  but that is not a very satisfying answer to receive. So…what is the satisfying answer? There probably isn’t one, but in the Standards of Practice for Home Inspections in MA it clearly states in Section 6.06:(4) “Home Inspectors are prohibited from determining the repair cost of any item noted in the report or inspected by them and/or their firm.”  That’s it, that is the reason. Your home inspector is not telling you that information because they are acting according to the standards of practice of a home inspector.

As I said, that can be a bit frustrating, but at the same time, do you really want to rely on info from a person that’s not following the standards for their job? How do you know the rest of the information they’re providing you doesn’t have the same lapses of judgment in them?

There are also a few other good reasons Home Inspectors don’t give costs beyond the standards of practice. If the inspector is not directly involved in the field they are giving a quote on, they do not know the current costs of material, labor and demand. It will make their estimates nothing more than a guess which may or may not be on the mark. Along with this, different services may have different methods for doing work and they may have inherent cost differences. Area of service also can dictate some cost changes too.

While not getting the immediate answer can be frustrating, your Home Inspector should make sure you know who to follow up with to allow you to reach out and get accurate information for the next steps in your decision. As always, get 3 quotes. This really helps you determine the range you should be looking at. One important thing to do as well is make sure to ask about how they are going to do the work and what materials they are using. How something is repaired is as important as how much it is going to cost.