Home inspection (bedek bayit) is an essential, in-demand service for apartment buyers, renovators, and residents who want their home in proper condition.
Until about fifteen years ago, there was almost no awareness of home inspection or of checking an apartment before buying it. Over the years, as people bought homes, both new from a contractor and secondhand, they kept turning up more construction defects.
These defects take countless forms. Dampness is the most common and most visible one: roughly 30 to 40 percent of new apartments have mild to severe dampness problems. It often shows up as peeling plaster or whitewash on ceilings, walls, or above the baseboards, caused by dampness trapped beneath the floor tiles when the base layer under the flooring was laid wet or damp; that moisture then rises by capillary action and does widespread damage over time.
Another common defect is protruding or hollow floor tiles, the result of unprofessional, amateur gluing that leaves a void beneath the tile and lets it come loose from the floor or wall.
That is why home inspection companies specializing in defects like these started appearing.
Their advantage lies in the depth of knowledge their engineers bring to a home inspection: they can spot what an untrained eye would miss.
As in any professional field, it pays to check a home inspection company's credentials before hiring it, both for its engineers' experience and for the service and support it offers if you need it, such as dealing with the contractor or legal backup.
Checking a new apartment, usually bought from a contractor, differs from checking a resale apartment someone has already lived in. For a new apartment, the check compares the property against the Israeli standard and the Sale (Apartments) Law; since the contractor must meet those standards, any deviation obligates him to make repairs.
For a resale apartment, there is usually no intention to pursue anyone for the repairs. There, the prospective buyer wants to know about any construction defects simply to inform the purchase decision, making sure there is nothing significant, such as serious dampness or plumbing problems, that would get in the way of the apartment's function or reduce its value.
The growth of the home inspection industry benefits residents across the country: the sheer number of inspections carried out in new apartments and houses pushes contractors to find effective fixes for construction defects, which gradually raises the standard of finish.
Preventing a defect before it happens is cheaper than repairing it once the apartment is finished, and certainly cheaper than losing in court and having to pay a resident heavy compensation.
The engineers of Arad Bedek Bayit, led by building engineer Ron Arad, whom courts appoint as their own expert on construction defects. The company has been inspecting apartments and buildings since 2001. Engineer Ron Arad · More about the company