As buyer agent, we are supposed to be uninvolved during the home inspection. It's between the buyer and home inspector, but we as buyer agent are present as a formality. If we get (unduly) involved, there's exposure of liability there. Even in our training class, we are told to sit in the living room and do paperwork or something, while buyer and home inspector do their thing.

For some reason, my buyer has called at the last minute that she won't be present at her own home inspection. She wants me to sit in for her. I recommended she cancel this one and make a new appointment that's suitable for her. Curiously, she's resistant for some reason, and she said she will call me back.

This is suspicious behavior. I don't think I'm paranoid but I thing she's being evasive about being present, and somehow she's trying to set me up to be there for her. She's an investor and bought and owns other property.

What do you folks advise? Thanks.

I would tell her that you will be there to let the inspector in, but that's as far as it goes. If you want someone to shadow the inspector, reschedule the inspection to a time when she can be present.

That's enough information for me to make a decision. As a former investor myself, anytime an investor can get someone else to do their work for them, they typically do. It's all part of the game of making a profit. By using someone else's time for free, investors make a better profit. In this case, the investor can be out looking for more properties to invest in.

I think you're OK to let the inspector in and out. Present the report to the buyer, and if she has any questions, direct her to the inspector, just like if she was asking a tax or legal question you'd refer her to an accountant or a lawyer.

You don't want to recommend to your buyer during an inspection that a minor problem would be easy to repair, or advise her to cancel the deal based on something that shows up in the inspection, which I think is the issue with the agent shadowing the inspector, but as far as acting as her agent and passing documentation back and forth between her and the inspector, I think you're in the clear.

She's just using your time, which costs her nothing, instead of her own time.

I would let the inspector in. he has a job to do, I NEVER REFER an inspection company. Always tell them to get one on their own.

Don't be going there. The inspector is her agent, and you have no business what so ever with that relationship.

Quite frankly, I'd have the listing agent make the arrangements. Remember that your purchase contract likely states that the seller will provide access, not the buyer or the buyers' agent.

IMHO, You are her agent, working for her best interests, to complete the deal. I never said you had anything to do with the relationship between the inspector and your client, I said I don't foresee a problem by accepting the inspection report on behalf of your client and presenting it to your client, and/or presenting questions and clarifications from your client to the inspector.

In fact, I went out of my way to specify that as her agent, one should not make any remarks about the inspection and its effects on the deal. While some of us may be more than qualified to give their opinion, the client hired the inspector for that information, not the sales agent.

I feel that as a person's sales agent, I have a duty to work for my client's best interests with all the entities involved in the sale, while not exceeding the authority outlined by that position. I don't think that acting as an overglorified messenger service could be considered a performance outside my scope of practice.

If it is, I'm going to sell my fax machine, get rid of my phones, e-mail and copy machines, because I would say that 75% of the time I'm working for a client, I'm passing information back and forth between the entities involved in the transaction on behalf of my client.

If my client thinks she doesn't need to be present, and can work with only the written report, who am I to say she must reschedule so she can be present? I would have had to have gone anyways, because the seller's agent has no business speaking with my buyer, so I'm expected to allow access.