To be honest aside client saving $200-$400 there are no other “Benefits” of not doing / having the Asbestos building inspection, let me write some real life examples:
Ohhh these nice folks lived in this building for so many years I am sure it is a good buy… NOT!!
Perfect example to why have licensed inspector perform asbestos inspection on your current or potential future property . This COUPLE purchased their first home without a home inspection, house looked to be in a good shape, until the first winter… that is when they found it really hard to heat up and keep their upstairs warm. So in order to safe some re-insulating costs they signed up to Federally Funded Nicor home insulation program. Everything was looking so good for them ( I mean saving money on re-insulation ) until Nicor inspector visited their house and after short time came back and informed them that they do not qualify. Why? You have Vermiculite Insulation!! When I arrived on location I discovered Vermiculite Insulation covering virtually entire house: attic, walls, knee walls. Removing vermiculite is very labor intensive (crawl in bag it, vacuum it, encapsulate it and dispose it ) since most of the work is being done in confined spaces, more labor equals more $ it will cost to remove. I estimated cost to remove the vermiculite from this property to be in excess of $15,000. I did however recommended owners that cheapest way out of this problem is to perform air sampling to determine if and how much asbestos is airborne inside their living area, and then move on from there. I mean it could be possible that their living area was not cross contaminated.
Would they buy the home for $15-$25k less if they would know about the Vermiculite and the need of hiring asbestos abatement contractor to remove it?; maybe they would not buy it at all… Nobody knows. I do know that it was not SMART buying the home with just an OK from your Cousin/Uncle/Father who knows a lot about construction.
