Building Inspector v Certified Building Certificate

Hi. We had a building inspector come out to review a house and he said the decking was unsafe to use because the number of screws do not follow the manufacturers guide. I believe it's missing a screw per bracket wing.

The seller has provided documentation to say the decking was built by a reputable company and certified at completion.

This is the only thing we have raised in our contract after the inspections took place. We have asked them to make it compliant (sellers expense) and we will send the inspector out (our expense) to check.

Seller is standing by that it is safe. We (the buyers) are on the inspectors side and have openly expressed that they can call the inspector to chat about it. The inspector also mentioned the certified builder that signed off the final checks can talk to him. We are happy for our inspector to be wrong but they need to prove this is the case.

The deck seems strong but we can't unseen what the inspector said in the report - that it is unsafe to use.

Are there ways around getting past this? We do not want to buy when it's non-compliant. We feel we should not fork out any money to make it compliant as it should be the case in the first case.

Please share your stories, tips.

Thanks

 

It is probably just a technicality. If the bracket was designed for only 2 screws then yes if 50% are left out that is a concern, if the bracket was designed for 5 then that is a different scenario. Your inspector probably has an obligation to report any non-compliance as "unsafe" I would imagine.

 

Thanks Anthony. There are 4 screws per wing, inspector says needs to be 5 per manufacturers guidelines.