House to Home

Mr. Richard Van Dort advertises on all of brochures, and web site that he  is  qualified  to do  roof  inspections   and qualified to do a wind mitigation inspection.. He was recommended to us by an insurance company that we had call to get a quote for Homeowner Insurance.
We to get to the point. He not only said our roof was good he passed the roof on a "Wind Mitigation Report" . Based on his information we purchased the home.
Well the roof is not good its actually really really bad. Six months after we purchased the home we started having two leaks and one area of ceiling stated turning black. This took six months to notice as we did not get much rain at all until this time when we started have really heavy rain. We call a roofing company we got off Angies list who had a A rating and had been in business for over 30 years. They came out same day we called. They noticed bad areas right away , without even getting on the roof yet. When they got on the roof they almost fell through in several areas. Could not believe that we had the inspected before we purchased the home and the "Inspector" said this roof was good. The roof had more bad areas than good. Also the roofing company were the ones to tells us that the roof was "double shingled", we had no idea as we are not roofers or "qualified roof inspectors". They also that the poles that stick out of your roof I forget what they called them said they should all have "boots " on them and Mr. Richard Van Dort should have noticed and reported that at the very least if he knew what code was. Also the dryer vent on roof was PVC pipe and thats not allowed by code. Mr Richard Van Dort had not reported any of this on his report. They showed us so many places where this roof is so bad that after they pointed it out to us we saw exactly what Mr. Richard Van Dort Shoud have seen and reported if he was truly qualified to inspect roofs.
Based on the first roofers evaluation, we decided to call 2 more Angie list A roofers , one being one of the most well established and well respected roofers, to come and evaluate our roof. We wanted this to be fair so we only told them of the water leak areas we were having problems with and wanted them to look over the roof and let us know what their opinion was.
We could not believe it, All Three said exactly the same thing. The roof was total shot and needed to either have major repairs done until we could replace it, but all said it needed to be replaced as soon as possible. They all  pointed out the same things the other one did, ie., boots , dryer vent and many rotted roof areas. I guess I could understand if the damaged was in one or two small places he may have missed the rot but as many as was shown to us is astonishing. They could not believed that we had a roof inspection done prior to purchasing the home. We told them after they gave us their qualified opinion. We also asked how long would have it taken for the damaged roof to become this bad. All agreed and said years. Mr. Richard Van Dort  did not even report or tell us that roof was double shingled. Mr.Richard Van Dort had on his report the age of the roof, we are not sure where he got this information as we checked with city , county, realtors, and there is no record of the roof being done since 1980. Mr. Richard Van Dort shows a much more recent date. We are still in process of trying to figure out where he got his date from. We have asked neighbors who have been here for years who knew the original owner and the 2 owner whom we purchased it from and they all said at least 20+ years ago.
My Husband and I are not "roofers" and don't claim to know anything about them that why we hired Mr.Richard Van Dort and paid him $500.00 to prevent us from getting into this costly situation.
We did consult with an attorney and he wrote Mr. Richard VanDort a letter informing him of this information. We heard back from his attorney(a relative of his)  basically stated that he is protected by the contract we signed with him. He actually stated that we should have read the contract better before we signed it and you know what  " he is right". He covered his butt .
 He has a clause that covers him and anything you could only recover would be $500.00 you paid him, but we have to go to mitigation first, they even have companies listed who to use and we have to pay for the mitigation plus our attorney fees (over $5000.) to start and Mitigation is binding. What this means is you can't even take him to court before or after. By the time this is all over and if we lose it would cost us thousands of dollars. Also regarding the wind mitigation report that he stated the roof would withstand I think its 130 mile an hours winds was false, it won't.   I not even going to go into the insurance issuer with this
, thats for another place and time.
Mr. Richard Van Dort even wrote a statement to us, why did we wait 6  months after we closed on the house to notice this problem with our roof. The answer to that is : We did not have heavy rains matter of fact not much rain at all until then. So, therefore we had not noticeable leak .
 Mr. Richard Van Dort and his wife m who came with him and also did some of the inspections, seem to be very nice and professional, never would have even thought he would not stand behind his work, but boy we sure found out different.
We (our attorney) asked him for his insurance information and we were not provided with it .
The quotes we have gotten from all three Roofing companies is within 500.00 of each other. Total cost to replace our roof is going to cost of $17,585.00. Thank you Mr.Richard Van Dort for not being qualified to inspect our roof and hiding behind you contract. Anyone who has to put this much CYA in your contract should not have a license. This is not fair to us as we did all the right things before we purchased this home. Once again Thank you Mr. Richard Van Dort for causing us major financial hardship.
Mr. Richard Van Dorts attorney made a statement that (we) could effect Mr. Richard Van Dorts lively hood by letting people know this information. WOW REALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am only telling the truth Mr. Richard Van Dort and will continue to do so, as I don't want someone else to be put in a situation like ours. You could have done the right thing and make you mistake right. We all make mistakes but its a true testiment to a person moral and ethical compass to what they do about it.
So I would not recommend House to Home or Mr. Richard Van Dort to do a home inspection ever
We have to pay our lawyer how much did you pay your relative Mr. Richard Van Dort to protect you?
*** I would like to respond to Mr,Van Dort (owner of House to Home) response  from our review. Mr . Van Dort states that it was almost a year of friendly exchanges, not sure what Mr. Van Dort means by this, We have not even lived in this house for  a year. We bought the home on March 21,2012. We moved in May 1, 2012 as we were remodeling the inside of the house. I contacted Lynn shortly after that to have her send me a copy of the receipt for the inspection as I could not find mine, but this had nothing to do with the roof . We had not had any problems at that point. The second time I called and spoke to Lynn again was when the roof started to  leak  as we had  hard  rains this was around October 2012 , Mr Van Dort Suggestion that that we waited almost 8 months and then threateded him with a law suit. We contacted him when the roof started to leak and Lynn (his wife ) stated our warranty was passed. It was only good for 90 days and unfortunatly mother nature did not give us hard rains in time. Lynn suggestion to me was

He does air samples to check for mold, termite inspections, wind mitigation reports that can help you with your homeowner's insurance, in addition to the regular home inspections. He is thorough, polite, and honest. You get an extensive report at the end including photos and suggestions. Besides pointing out major problems a home might have, he also lets you know of smaller kinds of things that you may want to follow up with later on. He might charge a little more, but it is well worth the money!