Smart systems aren't in the standards, so the inspector either tests them for a fee or writes them out

Question

Reading two inspection agreements side by side for a property with a fair amount of connected equipment. Thermostats, four cameras, a leak sensor setup tied to a valve, a video doorbell, a lock on the side door, all app controlled and all tied to whatever account the current owner is using.

One agreement excludes everything low voltage and app dependent in a single sentence and never mentions it again. The other has a $185 line called connected systems verification, which on reading closely means he confirms devices power up and respond, and does not confirm they'll transfer to a new account or work after the seller pulls their credentials.

The exclusion approach is defensible. The standards most state licensing regimes point to were written around structure and mechanical systems, and testing something you can't reset or access without another person's login puts you in a position where you're reporting on an account, not on a house. Licensing and standards adoption differ state to state, so what an inspector is even permitted to opine on isn't uniform.

The fee-for-verification approach is also defensible. The equipment exists, it affects what a buyer thinks they're getting, and someone should look at it before closing. If the inspector won't, the buyer either does it themselves or nobody does.

The part I can't resolve is whether $185 for a power-up check is worth anything at all, or whether it's a liability shape with a price tag on it. Where do you land.

renee_dubois · Answer

I've had the account transfer problem twice on small buildings and neither time was it about whether the device worked. Seller closed the account, hub bricked, and I bought four new cameras. A power-up test at closing would have told me nothing about that. The question that mattered was who owns the account and what happens to it at closing, and that belongs in the contract, not the inspection report.

mikeoconnell7 · Answer

Cairn's right that the transfer is a contract item. Still, someone has to tell the buyer the equipment is there and what it is. Half the buyers I talk to don't know a leak valve from a thermostat and the listing photos won't help them.

derekj19 · Answer

$185 buys you a documented list of what's installed and whether it responded. That's not nothing if you're a buyer who's never touched any of it. It's close to nothing if you're Meridian and you already read agreements for fun.

monica_tran3 · Answer

I'd sell it as an inventory, not a test, and I'd price it lower. Photograph every device, note the make, note whether it powered on, state plainly that account access and post-closing function are outside the scope. Takes twenty minutes and the exposure is small because you never said it works, you said it turned on. The inspectors getting into trouble on this are the ones writing "functional" about a valve tied to an account they can't see.

gregpowell66 · Answer

The one that actually worries me on that list is the leak valve. That thing can close a main. If it's wired into the plumbing, its failure mode is a house with no water or a house with water everywhere, and it lives in a gap between the plumbing inspection and the low voltage exclusion. I'd want it looked at by whoever installed it, not by a generalist checking whether an app responds.

tylerbrooks9 · Answer

Exclude it in writing and tell the buyer to get the installer out. I don't want a $185 line that ends in a sentence explaining what it didn't cover.

Smart systems aren't in the standards, so the inspector either tests them for a fee or writes them out

6 replies