KACHELE GROUP

Our mortgage company's assessor required a structural inspection of the property we were purchasing prior to finalizing our mortgage. Kachele was suggested by the seller and as our own realtor's suggested structural engineer was booked and we needed the work done quickly (before the closing date) we hired Kachele. They came out (arrived and completed the work with only the seller there not with us / our realtor) and looked at the property and wrote up a stamped letter that said the property was structurally sound. When our realtor arrived they were finishing, he asked what Kachele thought and they said everything was fine. So we purchased the home. Our regular home inspector had noticed what he thought might be some cosmetic damage on the front of the house / enclosed porch. After Kachele came out and said there were no red flags or things to be concerned about we assumed they too had seen this issue on the front of the house and determined it wasn't worth mentioning / that it was cosmetic. After purchasing the home, we had a contractor out to deal with what we thought was this cosmetic issue (something our roofer suggested we do before he completed some necessary repairs). When the contractor came out he immediately suggested (without opening anything up, just visually) that we might have a structural issue. When he opened things up his suspicions were confirmed. He said we needed to have a structural engineer out to inspect and do drawings for a permit for the repairs and that perhaps the company who gave us a clean bill of health would come out and do the work for free or a discount because they missed such an obvious (as in visible without touching the house) issue. We contacted Kachele and they were completely uncooperative, rude and unhelpful. They intimated that we did not know what we hired them to do and that they only were hired to look at the foundation (which was not what the mortgage company had required - the mortgage company had required a full assessment of any potential issues due to settlement of any kind). They refused to acknowledge that their report had been misleading or that they might have any responsibility to return to the site to do a re-assessment or provide drawings discounting the price we had already paid to them for their assessment. The repairs for the structural issue will be approximately $4000. While we could not have known how much the structural issues would cost prior to purchasing the house, had we known it was a red flag we would have seriously thought twice and also re-negotiated with the seller. I would not recommend hiring them - especially if you are planning to make a purchase of a home based on their work.

Kachele was punctual and came out and looked at everything.