We used Cornerstone for a home inspection based upon a recommendation from our realtor. It was a mistake. The inspector did a terrible job and missed many things, e.g. the garage isn?t guttered and there are holes in the walls, the back deck is posted into buckets rather than the ground, there are nails sticking out of the basement stairs, a couple of the stairs are cracked, and on and on. But, the biggest problem the inspector missed was the hot water heater. As we later found out, the water heater was too small to support our house (the house is a new build). The folks at Cornerstone answered that they weren?t responsible for looking at that, and that it was not their mistake. Unfortunately, they are the only ones who hold that opinion ? we have no recourse against the seller because the problem wasn?t listed in the home inspection. The water heater oversight by Cornerstone has cost us a little over $5000, and we still haven?t addressed the other issues that were missed by the sloppy inspection.
To make things worse, we had to endure Melissa. Because we lived in another state, we arranged the home inspection by phone with her and she didn?t send a contract for us to sign.
We were in a hotel, in transit to the new house when Melissa called to ask if we had sent the check for the inspection. No, we hadn?t received an invoice from her, no paperwork containing a bill or an address to which we should send a check. We hadn?t
really given it any thought, since you typically receive a bill before you are asked to pay! Melissa did send the invoice via e-mail that day - apparently it had been an oversight on her part. The next call I got was two days later, as the movers were unloading at the new house. She asked if we?d sent the check. Of course - no, we had been on the road moving, hadn?t yet had a chance to pay the bill we received 2 days earlier. Then we started finding all the problems with the house, the biggest of which was no hot water for our first week in the house ? in Chicago, in November.
Not quite a week later, I was in my office at my new place of employment when Melissa called (before we even had hot water at home!). I let her know we had been consumed with trying to get our house fixed, we?d had the bill in-hand for just over a week, and we would send a check when we sat down to pay all of our bills. Melissa wanted a credit card number over the phone, but I did not feel comfortable giving it to a company that had proven so incompetent. Unfortunately, that wasn?t good enough for Melissa. After I hung up, I immediately got a call back from the Cornerstone number, which I ignored (I had been at my new job less than a week!). Then, Melissa started texting. This was some of what she wrote (misspellings were hers):
?Left u a message. I will be suing you for the inspection fees plus court and attorney costs. We do not determine the adequacy of any system or component as written in the inspection agreement. Furthermore, this is not grounds to refuse payment. I will see u in court. Been thru this before. You will lose and there will be a judgement on yer record that I will have to sign off to fix your credit. Interesting.?
So, we had no written agreement and had been sent the bill a bit over a week earlier, which was the first time we had seen in writing both the fee charged and an address to which we could mail the check. In that week, we had no hot water in our new house, had begun to find all of the other issues that the inspector had missed, and my husband and I both started new jobs ? not the easiest week ever. So, perhaps Melissa was a bit overboard making empty threats. You see, in Illinois, you can file a claim for non-payment after 60 days, not one week.
Melissa, in her very professional manner, went on to tell me that the payment was due on inspection, I should read my contract. Of course, I didn?t have a contract. To that, she responded that the home inspector shouldn't have done the inspection without a contract, this was his fault, and she was going to fire him. Again, not true since she was the only person
with whom we had been in contact.
Despite the shoddy work, we sent payment in full to the PO box listed on the invoice. A week later, I got an e-mail from Melissa claiming she hadn?t received payment, with a cc to her ?lawyer? (Jeff Kropp, at a g-mail address), telling him to start a claim in
small claims court. Of course, at the time, the check was in the PO Box listed on the invoice - Melissa just hadn?t bothered to check it before harassing us again!
This is the lesson ? don?t just take a recommendation and run with it ? always do your own research! Had I read the complaints from other customers elsewhere online, and the disrespectful manner with which the owners responded to them online, I would have run screaming!!