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myerschimney

Dealing With Real Estate / WETT Inspection Misinformation




Over many years we installed 3 wood burning systems for a customer. They contacted us to get paperwork for selling. We advised WETT Inspections and booked them in. Then, their Real Estate agent got involved…..........


Ian, "According to our real estate agent, we aren’t required to have the 3 wood burning units certified next Wednesday as they were initially purchased and installed by a WETT certified installer, Ian. All that’s required is the paperwork that would have been issued at the time, demonstrating that in fact they were installed by a WETT Certified business, Myers Chimney. Kindly help me to figure this out, and get the right documents to illustrate that our wood burning appliances are safe, without having to pay for the certification. My apologies for the confusion. We would appreciate your input. "

Thanks,

Sara


My Response: Hi Sara, The wood stove in your garage and basement as well as your fireplace on the main floor were installed by Myers Chimney; this statement by me now confirms this. When a property changes hands what is required by the new insurance company is a ‘WETT Inspection’. By definition, a WETT Inspection is an evaluation of a system in it’s current state, today, before the sale. Or, after the sale if it is the new owner having the inspection done. To protect us, you and the purchaser there is only one product that can fulfil this purpose. It is good to know that a certified person has done an installation, but still a WETT Inspection will be requested. If you do not want to spend the money you could say the systems were professionally installed and let them hire us, or someone else to inspect. The “paperwork that would have been issued at the time”, is no longer valid (I don’t even know if we gave an inspection in 2012 and 2015 regardless) “we aren’t required to have the 3 wood burning units certified next Wednesday” " as they were initially purchased and installed by a WETT certified installer, Ian." To be completely clear, this is not good advice and your agent should educate themselves. A WETT Inspection for insurance or Real Estate purpose is not the act of “certifying” Nor, were your systems ‘certified’ by us when they were installed. Only the person is certified and a WETT Inspection is a report produced by the person; further, the reports are time sensitive. If I may; I installed a wood stove and black pipes only for a customer about 8 years ago. 2 years ago she sold and had me do a WETT inspection. That buyer sold the next year and passed on my WETT Inspection to the new owner. They also did major changes to the installation (which were non-compliant) and sold it again. The new buyer contacted us and asked for the inspection to be updated- they did not want us to come out, just change the dates. He was told we installed the whole system. I asked for pictures and a copy of whatever it was that he had. He sent me a copy of my old WETT Inspection and most of the information was not on it, and I noticed from the pictures that the system was changed and no longer compliant. Still waiting to hear the outcome of that one. I guess you could say this is one reason why nobody should accept a dated inspection, and certainly why we should never offer binding statements, anything that is outside the parameters of what is clearly defined as a WETT Inspection. It really is the only protection that anybody involved has. Final note: Hey, if you really don’t want to spend money on it, then advise potential purchasers that they will have to do it themselves. It is the trend right now, I guess it is still a sellers’ market. Someone who does not know, may think it is some kind of a needless cash grab, but this is not the case. I’m still trying to figure out why so many people pump a septic tank for selling or buying, but will not get the wood burning system checked.

Regards, Ian


Her Response: Ian + Tina,

Clearly it will be to our benefit to have the inspections done “by owner”. We were not sure what party, buyer or seller, was responsible. Thanks for the clarification.

Let’s proceed! See you next Wednesday July 27th.

Thank you,

Sara


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