Home Buyers Safeguard Inc

I have been an Albuquerque Realtor for over 30 years. During that time I have used Home Buyers Safeguard many times. But I had two experiences in 2014 that guarantee I will never use them again. In the first instance the inspection was on two adjoining properties. One of the houses was a newer frame/stucco, but the other was an old adobe that had all the weird things you see in old adobe homes that people have tried to update. The inspector missed many items, but the most important was that there was no water meter for one of the properties. Luckily, the new buyer does construction, and the seller was a Realtor who knew that we couldn't close without water, so the buyer took responsibility for repairs and the owner gave a credit for the water meter, at a cost of several thousand dollars. The second property was an investment property purchased by my husband. I did not hire Home Buyers Safeguard to do the inspection. It had been completed for a previous sale which had fallen through. The most important item on my husband's list of what he was looking for in a house was that the wiring be copper, not aluminum. He understood the safety hazards in aluminum wiring and the expense of mitigation. In the old days the wires could be pigtailed at a reasonable cost, but new methods and codes make it much more expensive. The inspection report said that the property had copper wiring. It did not. The wiring was aluminum. I called Daryl Keys, the owner of Home Buyers Safeguard, about this huge error, and he gave all kinds of excuses - the electrical panel was blocked by the owner's possessions, the secretary hit the key for copper wiring by mistake, the house might be mixed copper and aluminum wiring, and so on. His main defense centered around the fact that he did not make much money on this inspection, and therefore wasn't willing to pay for any repairs. He did promise to look into the matter, and we waited for months for him to respond, but he never did. I know that my husband should sue for damages, but as I said, I have known Daryl for years, and I guess I would rather pay the $5,500 out of my own pocket than take him to court. I have sent thousands of dollars of business to Home Buyers Safeguard over the years, and I am saddened to see that they now are doing incompetent inspections, and then refusing to accept responsibility for their mistakes. Realtors and buyers beware: DON'T DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY!

They were recommended by our realtor, and they did a good job. They walked around with us, and they didn't ask us to leave the house. We liked that they did it with us. Their price was reasonable.

The home inspection report was not as detailed as I would have liked and this caused difficulty for me in deciding on things needing repair since I was not present to see the full inspection. I felt the service provider was more friendly to the seller's agent than to me.

We spent a year and nearly $70,000 remodeling the home in order to sell. Everything inside is brand new with the exception of the original hardwood floor. I don't know who chose this company. I don't know about responsiveness or punctuality. I do know that I stopped by the home one day to find a man on the roof who seemed loathe to identify himself or why he was on my roof. Most of the report notations are "serviceable". I should hope so, all appliances, cabinets, and counter tops are brand new. The inspection was done after the the historic "100 year rain" that was centered over this area of town. The inspector noted that the doors were not plumb. This is Albuquerque, when it's humid, like after an historic rainfall, the doors swell and stick. True to ABQ, the area dried out and the doors no longer stick. This is not a problem with being "plumb" it's a wood and humidity issue. The brand new French doors were also noted as not being plumb, rubbing against each other and not functional. If we had shaved the doors when the humidity was gone there would have been a gap letting in cold air and bugs. After some instruction was given on HOW to open the doors, the realtors saw that the doors function perfectly. To be fair, there were two doors in the home that needed tweaking. The report noted that the flooring couldn't be evaluated due to coverings. There were no coverings. It's an original hard wood floor. The home was noted as being brick veneer. It's a solid, brick home NOT veneer. The light in a closet was noted as being non-functional. Technically this was true. The light bulb was burnt out. Not as scary to a buyer as being "non-functional". There was a notation about areas under the eaves being sealed in some places and not in others. This was not true. There was a notation about some flashing and sealant on the roof. The inspector felt the sealant should cover the entire vent. My contractor advised that this is not how it is done. My realtor's contractor agreed. The dishwasher became unattached from the hose and the facing on the cabinet above the dishwasher was hanging off. I have date/time stamped photos showing the facing in perfect place and shape a few days prior to the inspection. I also know that the dishwasher was attached to the hosing prior to the inspection because it had been run, successfully, several times without the flooding that would have occurred if it wasn't attached. Somebody must have grabbed the handle and really jerked it up and out causing the disconnect and damage. I find this curious. There is a roto-rooter access port that was placed in the front yard 30 years ago. The inspector requested a cap be put on the access pipe so that dirt didn't fall into the port. It's encased in a large, steel pipe with a water meter cover over the top. There is no dirt to fall into the access port and no lip to attach a cap. Due to the historic rain fall, there was water under the house. There was water under all of the homes in the area. The inspector reported the water was due to a leak. Several handymen and plumbers later, no leak was found in that area. Other notations included the cracks in the cement. The house was built in 1959. Yes, there are cracks in the cement. If one of those cracks posed a trip hazard, that would be worth noting. That was not the case. My contractor was irate about the report as it made this beautiful home sound like it was in shambles. He called the inspector to discuss the findings as he was the one who would be making the repairs. I may have gotten the information wrong but it seemed there was discussion about a template being used to assist in the writing. A possible explanation for the major errors regarding the brick and the floors. When my brother bought his house, the inspector provided a 26 page report that included photographs documenting his findings. There were no superfluous notations filling space. The information presented was accurate and helpful. This is how a home buyer's inspection should be done. Because of this report, we nearly decided to take the house off the market and rent it out instead. I'm amazed the buyer still wanted to buy. The purpose of an inspection is to find any problems so they can be rectified before closing. In order to do that, an inspector must have a good, working knowledge of all facets of home building. This didn't seem to be the case in this instance. This inspector did not provide fair, accurate, or useful information. F-

Our inspector was absolutely terrible. His inspection was far from thorough, and he missed basic things that wound up costing us thousands of dollars later on. We never would have bought the house had he done what he should have done. For example, he missed numerous visible signs of water damage to the drywall. We later had to have all of the drywall in our living room redone before we could paint. This also was a sign that there were problems with the roof leaking. The first night we spent is the home, three active leaks occured. A roof replacement set us back $8000. He also missed the fact that FIVE of the windows in the home had been GLUED shut by the previous owner. The glue is very visible from the outside and never should have been missed in his report. Because these are custom wood windows, they will cost us thousands of dollars to replace. He missed the fact that the gas fireplace was leaky and completely inoperable, which we had to subsequently repair. I could continue to give an account of his failure to do his job. He obviously was friends with our Realtor, based on their conversation. I should have known better than to use the recommendation of an agent who was obviously just looking to close a deal.

This is a Home Buyer's Warranty service that has an inspection done and then will offer warranty service based upon that inspection. The inspector noted that the oven was warrantable. But, then put in a note that the.unti would be warranted for available replacement parts and labor to install parts only. After in the home a couple of weeks, we began to get error codes and the unit quit working. So, we call Home Buyer's and turned in the claim. Their contractor came out and basically said the parts are not available. Per the note in the warranty that states that they would only pay for parts, they cannot offer any help.

We were in the process of selling our condo and were under contract with a buyer who chose to use this company. When the inspector Chris arrived a few minutes late he was not very professional looking. He barely introduced himself and was kind of rude. Aside from that when I received his report there were several things that were inaccurate. For example he noted that one of the windows lacked anexterior screen. Now there had been a screen on that window since I bought the place 3 years ago. When the buyer requested that a screen be placed there it was no big deal because it had always been there and magically showed up on reinspection! The next thing that he was inaccurate about was the sliding door in the shower. His report said that the shower door didn't shut all the way and told the buyer that it needed to be replaced however as was the case again the shower door closed with no problems even the buyers realtor tested it and agreed. When we tried to contact him regarding exactly what what wrong with the door he didn't get back to us till the morning of closing! When asked about it he went on to say that there was no problem with the door!! It was very frustrating as you can imagine. I feel that he misled us and the buyer in regards to what was in need of fixing causing undo stress for the buyer as well as us.

It went as badly as possible. A furnace said to have been repaired was not and I paid the $2700 replacement because the seller had not provide the documentation of the repairs and this warranting agent did not reinspect and correct the coverage. The policy specification come several weeks after closing. When a small hot water heater leak was found, their service provide refused the claim becuase it did not show the leak in operation (due to evaporative drying).

I was adamant that I didn’t’ want roof or electrical problems. They did the inspection and told me there were some roof problems so they had them repaired. A week after I moved in, there were two leaks in the ceiling. I wasn’t happy with the inspector and I definitely wasn’t happy with the company that repaired the roof before I bought the house. I felt like they should have caught those things. They responded, but mostly I got the runaround.