No idea how any of that works. But do inspectors not carry anything to cover their obvious errors? I'm not an engineer at all but I carry E&O insurance when working which is for errors and omissions. Of course you would have to sue to get to that point.
Inspectors in TX are run at the state level, and the ability to get an inspector to testify against another inspector is pretty much zilch. And yes, it would require litigation, but the odds of winning against the inspector are minimal because we would have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they did not do their job. That's what makes the inspection report so damning. They carefully worded the document to say "we see this, but if you suspect it's this, then call X person." In the washroom, for example, there is wall-to-wall mold where the washer and dryer used to be. Dude's inspection, when I looked at the report more closely, checked the connection to the water hose and whether the washer worked. We never kept the appliances.
It seems like a no-brainer that a lawyer would take this on contingency (and you generally pay nothing on contingency, not sure who told you do). If they're consistently refusing you it's because there are problems with the case that you may not have had explained to you or maybe didn't understand when they did.
What exactly did they say when they turned you down?
You would think it's a no-brainer, and almost everyone outside the legal field agrees. That said, every single lawyer pushes back, saying we're up against a two-year battle. Well, no shit, we want to avoid lengthy litigation. If you present a compelling enough case, unless they can prove that there was permitted work done and that we caused this decay and deterioration after we moved into the home, you push for arbitration. Nearly all the lawyers have led with the lengthy trial and the unlikelihood that we can win, and never stopped to look at the evidence we presented. There are no city permits. There is wall-to-wall mold. There is an addition built at ground level with no sill plate, and the walls are essentially gutted. The ceiling is sagging, the insulation is rotting, there are cockroaches, and so on. But, I had an engineer show up today who said, "Well, I would strip away 12" from the floor inside and outside to see what it is under there, but this foundation looks good." Buddy, do you understand there are no damn layers between the concrete and the floor in a room that is a death trap? The foundation, across the entire home, surprisingly is a near 0" perfectly flat and level surface. But the problem isn't the foundation; it is what is sitting on top of it, aka that additional room. I swear, people keep telling us "well, you buy an older home..." uh-huh, and so I buy an older home, suddenly that's a free pass to completely take advantage of people? Nope.
