A Buyer’s Report Should Never Be Shared Without Consent

Ever wondered who truly owns a home inspection report? We pull back the curtain on a practice too many buyers don’t see coming: agents circulating a paid report to future buyers after a deal collapses. We explain why that report is the buyer’s property, what the purchase agreement actually requires, and how reusing a report exposes everyone to risk while stripping you of negotiating power.

We walk through the real legal framework—client confidentiality, inspector licensing rules, and why the client’s name stays on every page. You’ll hear how some agents try to justify sharing, why redacting a name doesn’t change ownership, and the narrow safety exceptions where notifying occupants is appropriate. Most importantly, we offer a practical playbook: use a targeted remedy or objection document, share only the specific findings tied to your decision, and put it in writing that your report is not to be distributed.

If you’re a buyer, this conversation shows how to protect your leverage and privacy while avoiding downstream liability. If you’re an agent, you’ll get a cleaner, safer process that respects contracts and keeps you out of harm’s way. And for sellers, the message is simple: encourage new buyers to order their own inspection, so everyone gets current, reliable findings with clear accountability.

Protect your investment and your options. Listen now, subscribe for more straight-talk on inspections and real estate, and share this with a friend who’s house hunting. Your report is yours—keep it that way.

Chapters

• 0:01 Awards And Credibility Claims
• 0:58 Who Owns The Inspection Report
• 2:29 Agents Sharing Reports Without Consent
• 4:12 What The Contract Actually Requires
• 6:30 Legal Duties And Confidentiality
• 8:40 Liability When Reports Get Reused
• 10:35 Tactics Agents Use To Obtain Reports
• 12:33 When Sellers Ask For The Report

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:01

Alright, Laura. Alright, Jim. If you are a home buyer and you have, as you should, you hire a home inspection company to do to do the inspection for you. If you're in Ohio, hopefully you hired habitation investigation.

SPEAKER_01: 0:16

The best company around.

SPEAKER_02: 0:18

My buyers. Well, we have won awards. Yes, we have. Multiple awards. So we are multiple years in a row. I think we're the most awarded home inspection company in Ohio. Maybe. Maybe probably very soon. There's probably some company that's been, hey, we're the number one Cleveland one for every year. We don't go to Cleveland, but we have won Best of the Midwest three times. Consumer's Choice Award twice. I think pretty impressive. I think the only home inspection company in Ohio has had consumer choice awards.

SPEAKER_01: 0:50

Yeah, I think we're the only one actually.

SPEAKER_02: 0:52

Yeah, so anyway, so so that's nice. But anyway, home buyer, you did a smart thing. You had the home inspection. What you may not realize Well you you know, as a home buyer, that report is for your purpose. Your use. You pay it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11

You pay for it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12

You paid for it. You're the one who signed the agreement regarding the scope and limitations of that inspection. It's your report. Your name is on that report and on the pages after that. Like not just the title, it's on every page after that. Right. So what you may not realize is that some real estate agents they say you decide not to go through the purchase. It can be any reason. The maybe there's issues found during the home inspection, maybe a financing, maybe just a change in your mind.

SPEAKER_01: 1:48

Whatever. Sale doesn't go through.

SPEAKER_02: 1:50

Yeah, it doesn't really does not matter. You may not realize that some agents will take your report.

SPEAKER_01: 1:58

Take your name off.

SPEAKER_02: 2:00

Well, hold on. They'll take your report and then they'll send it to every other person who wants to maybe look at that house or maybe a potential uh buyer of the house. And by and but you paid for it, and they're gonna try and use it for every everybody else. We had an agent the other day.

SPEAKER_01: 2:30

According to this agent, the purchase contract for the Columbus Board of Realtors states that you have to submit the whole report without the client's name on it.

SPEAKER_02: 2:44

That is if you are canceling the contract for some reason.

SPEAKER_01: 2:46

If you're canceling the contract for some reason.

SPEAKER_02: 2:48

First of all, is that true?

SPEAKER_01: 2:49

No. I pulled up the purchase agreement report from the Columbus Board of Realtors, and the only thing it says is that the so like you submit reports and um like inspection findings, things like that for the area that is the cause for concern and the cause for people backing out of it. It says nothing that the name should be taken off. And in fact, it almost looks as if the name needs to be on it because it's part of that purchase contract.

SPEAKER_02: 3:24

When I look wait a wait, a very specific purchase contract.

SPEAKER_01: 3:27

A very specific purchase contract for a very specific address and client and client. And when I looked up the ORC for home inspectors, we are mandated by the ORC to have the client name on it. We cannot take that off.

SPEAKER_02: 3:46

So and and just a double check, because we like to do that. We have friends who are real estate agents. They have we we talked to several over the years, and then that same day that this agent contacted, and 100% is like, no, you you cannot just scratch off the the client's name and then reuse it. Because the agent that contacted the other day, she wanted us to edit the report to remove the client's name and then go through every page and take it off the client's name after all those because she it's too labor-intensive for her to take a black marker and black out the buyer's name on every single page.

SPEAKER_01: 4:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 4:32

Which you're not supposed to do in the first place.

SPEAKER_01: 4:35

And then she gave us the It would make my life so much easier if you could just do this for me.

SPEAKER_02: 4:39

Well, and gave us a bullshit reason that that we're required and it's required. No, it is not required.

SPEAKER_01: 4:45

No.

SPEAKER_02: 4:46

At all. So if you if you're a home buyer, you need to be aware that some agent will try and steal your report and use it for other other buyers.

SPEAKER_01: 4:57

Well, the way to get around that, so if they do an inspection with us, we have a request to remedy writer in our report system that basically says X, Y, and Z is wrong. This is, you know, I want them fixed or whatever. All you have to do is submit that to get out of your contract. You don't have to submit the whole report. Don't let your agent submit the whole report. You paid for that. If you're getting out of the contract, they will use it for the next inspection.

SPEAKER_02: 5:28

You just have to send the section that you don't like of the report. Well, we'll say it was a cause cause of the inspection. You go, hey, foundation is crack. Here's here's here's the verification from this one section in the report. Do not send your whole report, they will use and abuse it, and then uh it's it's yours. They're basically stealing from you.

SPEAKER_01: 5:48

Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:49

They're not supposed to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 5:50

And there is a confidentiality clause, not only for home inspectors, but for real estate agents. And I genuinely don't understand how this is getting how how they get around that. Taking off the name doesn't change it. It's still that client's report. The client has not signed off on it. Our laws specifically state I can only give an inspection report if I've got a subpoena or something in writing from the client saying that I can. Why is that any different for an agent?

SPEAKER_02: 6:20

They I don't know why. It shouldn't be any different than they they're misinterpreting the rules and yeah, we need the whole report. Well, if you do need the whole report, which you don't, but if you did need the whole entire report, that report is not to be used for other purchasers.

SPEAKER_00: 6:52

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SPEAKER_01: 7:05

Right. They need to get their own.

SPEAKER_02: 7:07

They need to get their own.

SPEAKER_01: 7:08

Because that's also against the spirit of the home inspector licensing law. That law was created to protect clients. That new client does not have a signed agreement with that home inspection company. Let's let's say that inspection company did a terrible job and maybe they missed a foundation issue.

SPEAKER_02: 7:26

Which wouldn't be our company.

SPEAKER_01: 7:28

Right. No. That's why I said that another company. So maybe they didn't miss an electrical issue and the guy client didn't want that. So Joe Schmo comes in and maybe he's an electrician and he doesn't care about that, but he doesn't know about the foundation issue. If he buys that house on that report, he has no protection. He has absolutely nothing signed with that company that he can go back on. What he does have are two agents, i.e., the listing and the buyer's agents, that said, oh no, this is an okay report. You can use that. Who do you think he's going to go after?

SPEAKER_02: 8:04

Well, we talked to an alert attorney about that. Right. And he said the attorneys, well, he said that the agent by giving out that report to somebody who is not the original client for that home special company, they are taking it upon themselves to um assuring that the report is accurate and up to date. That's that's gonna be the agent's problem. And you know what? And it's probably gonna continue happening that they will share these reports until they get in the butt until they get sued. And we've had well, it's been a while. We had a an agent call and go, hey, I'm I'm the I'm the new agent for for your client. Remember that?

SPEAKER_01: 8:44

Yeah, I I need the report.

SPEAKER_02: 8:46

So I need the report sent to me, so then we called the client. Because something wasn't right. Well, it's just weird. Why would the client just send it if he has a new agent? Anyway, so we called the client, he's like, and he was like, No, absolutely, she is not my agent. I walked away from that house. So we've had agents flat out lie to us, and that wasn't the only one.

SPEAKER_01: 9:10

We've had another one very similar to that. Couple a couple different scenarios where like we were flat out lied to by someone trying to get the report.

SPEAKER_02: 9:20

Yeah, yeah. So this is it's going to is I'm sure it was always happening on some level. Now, if somebody wants to go, hey, the home seller wants the report so they can fix things. That still sounds like bullshit to me. Because sometimes they may, and I have talked to home sellers regarding the report because they had a question about a location of something to fix, and it was specific. So I'm like, okay, so they actually have been told about the report and they know. So I help them know what I'm like specific areas. He didn't understand us what block soften is. So so I I help that way, but typically, no, this is your the client who hired the special company, they're the one that has to send the report.

SPEAKER_01: 10:02

Well, in in our confidentiality law, it states that we cannot share anything on our report unless it has potential safety implications for the people currently living there. So, like you know, like we we can't just call up a seller and go, hey, dude, this came back.

SPEAKER_02: 10:24

Found a huge natural gas leak. That we can do that. Like little natural gas leak, it's not a big deal. It's it's seriously, it's like 25% of the houses have a little bit of a leak there, but it's so small, it it would, it's not an issue, really. Right. It's not gonna become a big problem. But some people forget about that. But anyway, that report, if you're the home buyer, that is your report. And make sure your agent tells the listing agent, this is my report. You do not have permission to sell it, to send it to anybody. And I would I would recommend that you tell them just to send sections. Your agent, listen, do not send the whole report, only send this portion of it. In fact, we have buyers that tell us do not send the report to my agent.

SPEAKER_01: 11:04

Yeah, regularly.

SPEAKER_02: 11:06

Which makes me wonder what kind of interaction they had with their agent, what why they don't fully trust their agent in the first place.

SPEAKER_01: 11:12

But we we've done given an agent's name. Like they'll tell us flat out, don't worry about it, I'll just send it to them. Like, so we don't even know who their agent is.

SPEAKER_02: 11:20

Correct, correct. We do know the listing, so we can get access to the house, right?

SPEAKER_01: 11:24

But but that's different than their own agent.

SPEAKER_02: 11:27

There's no reason why a buyer, if they decide not to go go to the house, they send their agent just that one section of the report that's concerning. That's all that's all they need to do. Don't don't let them tell you you gotta send the whole report to the listing agent or to because they it could be used for potential future home buyers. And nine times out of ten, it probably paid for the use that the home snatch company owns that, but you have full access to it. And and is not, I mean, if you want to share it, that's up to you. I wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_01: 11:56

Not after I paid all that money for it.

SPEAKER_02: 11:59

Well, you also know the new buyer is not has no protection. They don't they if if we if a home snatch company screwed up, they get they're gonna go after that that agent.

SPEAKER_00: 12:09

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02: 12:10

Because I guarantee the the you know insurance is go, nope. You just you have where's your sign where's your sign agreement? Nope, you don't have a single leg to stand on.

SPEAKER_01: 12:20

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 12:22

Now what could happen, this let's say this the agent sees the report, the listing agent sees the report, redacts sections of it, and then gives it out. Well, now they're they're fully liable for that. Easily. Easily. Or they there's all kinds of shady.

SPEAKER_01: 12:41

I don't think they can with ours. I think ours are protected.

SPEAKER_02: 12:46

Correct.

SPEAKER_01: 12:47

I think, if I recall correctly, ours are like a PDF protection.

SPEAKER_02: 12:51

Yeah, but if they scan it in, they put scan as a PDF, you can edit the PDF. You have a program that does that. Yes, there are there are ways it can be done. So yeah, always get your whole your own home inspection report and make sure your agents know do not share this whole report to anybody.

SPEAKER_01: 13:09

And if you have any questions, call us.

SPEAKER_02: 13:12

Yep, that is it. Thank you, everybody. Bye bye.