The Recommend Further Evaluation Call
Why this matters
"The inspector recommends evaluation by a licensed professional" is the most common reason a trade gets pulled into a sale, and the most commonly mispriced. Shops treat it as a free estimate, show up, inspect the whole system for nothing, and then write a page that answers a question nobody asked. The buyer needed one answer before a deadline. Give them that answer, charge for it like the professional opinion it is, and stop there.
What is actually being bought
Strip the call down and the buyer and their agent want three things, in this order:
- Is the flagged condition a real problem? Yes, no, or "it is a problem, but a small one."
- Roughly what does correction involve? Not a final price necessarily, but enough to know whether this is a filter, a part, or a system.
- In writing, before the inspection period ends. An answer on the phone does not go in a repair request. See related: How a Home Sale Timeline Works for the Trades.
Notice what is not on the list: a full inspection of the system, a life-expectancy forecast, a sales pitch for an upgrade, and a guarantee about anything you did not look at. Each of those is something buyers sometimes ask for and almost never need, and each one widens your liability faster than it widens your fee.
What you deliberately leave out, and why
The sharpest skill on these calls is scope discipline. Five things stay off the visit unless someone orders and pays for them separately.
The rest of the system. You were sent for the double-tapped breaker, not the whole electrical system. If you inspect everything and write "remainder of system in good condition," you have issued an opinion on wiring you did not open, in a document that will be read by a buyer's lawyer if anything goes wrong. Note anything you happened to see; do not survey for it.
Remaining life. "This water heater has about three years left" is a guess dressed as a finding. Nobody can tell an occupied buyer when a working appliance will fail. Say the age, say the condition you observed, and say it is operating or not.
Code compliance for the whole house. You can say a specific condition does not meet the installation requirement you are licensed to apply. You cannot certify a house to code; that is the building department's job, and only on permitted work. See related: Open Permits and Unpermitted Work in a Sale.
Anything invasive the owner has not approved. Pulling a toilet for a sewer camera, cutting an inspection hole, or opening a sealed combustion chamber in a house the buyer does not own needs the owner's permission, usually through the listing agent. Ask before you go. See related: Who Is Your Customer in a Real Estate Deal.
The repair itself. Many shops will not perform the repair a buyer's evaluation recommends until the seller hires them for it, because the buyer cannot authorize work on a house they do not own and the seller may choose someone else. Keeping evaluation and repair separate also keeps your findings looking independent of the sale.
Scoping it narrowly, on the phone
Before you book, get the exact report line and the one-sentence question it raises (reading the report is a sibling's subject; see related: Reading a Home Inspection Report as a Trade). Then say the scope back to the person ordering it:
- "We will look at the condition in item 7.4, the double-tapped breakers at the main panel, and tell you what it is and what correction involves. We are not inspecting the rest of the electrical system."
- "If we see anything else while we are there, we will note it, but we are not looking for it."
- "Findings in writing by [date], which is two days before your deadline."
That last line ties your delivery to the contract date and tells the agent you heard it.
Charging for it
An evaluation is a professional opinion delivered on a deadline, often in a house you have to schedule access to, written for a document other people will rely on. It is not a sales estimate, and pricing it as one creates three problems: you attract evaluation calls from every buyer in town who has no intention of hiring you, your free visit gets treated as a free opinion with no scope, and you have no agreement in place about who the work is for.
A workable structure, as a starting point to tune to your market:
- A flat evaluation fee equal to your normal diagnostic charge, covering one flagged item or a tight group of related items, the visit and the written findings.
- An added charge per additional item if the buyer wants more lines evaluated on the same trip, quoted at booking.
- Collected from the person ordering it, at booking or on completion, not at closing. Evaluations are ordered whether or not the deal closes, and a contingent fee gives you a stake in the outcome you do not want. Closing-table payment is for repairs. See related: Getting Paid at Closing Without Getting Stuck.
- Credited toward the repair if the seller later hires you to do the work, which many shops offer and which removes the "you charged me twice" complaint.
The fee is usually paid by the buyer, who ordered it. The agent is the messenger, not the customer, unless they agree in writing to pay.
Worked example: the panel with three lines on it
A buyer's agent calls an electrical contractor on day 5 of a 10-day inspection period. Report item 7.4 reads: "Two breakers at main panel appear to be double-tapped (two conductors under one terminal). Recommend evaluation by a licensed electrician." Item 7.6, which the agent did not mention, reads "Several receptacles in garage not GFCI protected."
The shop scopes it on the phone: item 7.4, panel only, plus a quick look at 7.6 since it is the same trip and the same panel, quoted as a second item at the add-on rate. The seller occupies the house; the listing agent approves removing the panel cover. Findings due day 8.
On site, the tech removes the dead-front with the main breaker on and the panel energized, because removing a cover is how the inspection is done, and so works it as energized-equipment exposure: arc-rated protection and voltage-rated gloves per the shop's NFPA 70E-2021 practice and its duties under 29 CFR 1910.333, cover handled so it cannot fall into the bus, and nothing inside touched. The tech finds two breakers each with two conductors under a single terminal. One breaker's label says it is listed for two conductors of that type and size; the other's does not. So item 7.4 is half right: one double tap is permitted by the breaker's own listing, and one is a defect.
Correction for the defect is a pigtail, joining the two conductors with a short lead to the breaker, about a 30-minute job with the panel de-energized and proved dead before and after per the shop's procedure (NFPA 70E-2021, 120.5).
The garage receptacles in item 7.6 are not GFCI protected. Whether that is a defect depends on when the garage circuits were installed and what the adopted code required then, which the tech cannot establish from the panel. The letter says what was observed, recommends GFCI protection as a current safety improvement, and does not call it a code violation.
While the cover is off the tech notices one breaker with a scorched handle. It is outside the scope. The letter mentions it in one line, "observed, not evaluated, recommend further evaluation," because saying nothing about a burn mark you saw is the omission a buyer's lawyer would ask about.
Findings go out on day 7. The buyer's repair request names the pigtail and GFCI protection, plus evaluation of the scorched breaker. The seller hires the same shop for all three, with the evaluation fee credited.
What would have changed the scope. If the house had been vacant with power off, the evaluation could not test anything live and the letter would have to say so; the shop should have asked about utilities at booking. If the agent had wanted a full electrical inspection, that is a different, larger job priced as one, and a sentence in the findings saying the scope was one panel item protects everyone from the confusion.
Where these calls go wrong
The free whole-house tour. The tech, trying to be helpful, walks every circuit and writes "system in good overall condition." Six months after closing a burned connection behind a kitchen wall becomes the buyer's claim, and the letter is Exhibit A. See related: Liability When a Buyer Relies on Your Estimate.
The life-expectancy line. "Probably has five years left" read aloud by a buyer whose furnace fails in two is a promise you made without meaning to.
The answer that does not answer. "Breakers inspected" tells the agent nothing. The findings have to resolve the item: defect, not a defect, or not determinable and why.
Taking the buyer's word for access. Arriving to an occupied house that nobody told about the visit costs you the slot and probably the deadline.
How to verify you got the call right
After the visit, read the report line and your findings side by side. Your findings should answer the one-sentence question, state the scope in a sentence a stranger could follow, name every condition you saw but did not evaluate, and arrive at least a day before the inspection period ends. If the agent has to call you to ask what you meant, the findings did not answer the question. The letter's structure is covered in a sibling. See related: Writing a Findings Letter Buyers, Sellers and Lenders Can Use.
References
- NFPA 70E-2021, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace, Article 130 (work involving electrical hazards) and 120.5 (establishing an electrically safe work condition)
- 29 CFR 1910.333, selection and use of electrical work practices, for the employer's duties to employees working on or near exposed energized parts
- Breaker manufacturer listing and labeling for terminals rated for two conductors
- See related: Reading a Home Inspection Report as a Trade, Writing a Findings Letter Buyers, Sellers and Lenders Can Use, Who Is Your Customer in a Real Estate Deal