The field of home inspection (bedek bayit), and building inspection to find construction defects, mirrors the broader story of consumer awareness in a capitalist society.
This field did not exist in Israel at all until about thirty years ago. Its rise shows how far apartment buyers' consumer awareness has come, culminating in home inspection companies that hand the contractor a professional report listing the construction and planning defects in the apartment.
Not long ago, consumers simply trusted the authorities around them, including sellers and marketers. If a seller declared a product sound, buyers tended to take that at face value rather than question it. As consumer awareness grew, alongside citizens' rights and their understanding of the law, buyers started checking for themselves whether they were actually getting the product and service they had been promised. Construction is a complex field, and reviewing it takes real expertise.
A resident has no way of judging on their own whether the apartment they received is actually sound. That is how a formal process developed: expert engineers inspect apartments against the technical specification and the plans the residents received, and, above all, compare what was actually built to the planning and building regulations that bind every contractor in the country.
Buyers came to understand that it is both their right and their responsibility to know their apartment's construction thoroughly and how it will hold up over the years, which is exactly what a home inspection, or building inspection, does for them.
Consumers once felt awkward demanding a repair or a fix for something defective they had bought. Today they know they have standing of their own, a recognized status with rights defined in law. Getting the product or service you were promised is not some favor you have to feel embarrassed asking for.
That shift in consumer standing began in North America, the birthplace of modern consumerism, and home inspection followed the same path, gaining momentum there first. In the United States, a building inspection to find construction defects has long been a standard, procedural part of every apartment purchase.
Israel is still far from that level of standardization. We still hear residents call a home inspection company sounding hesitant and worried about how the site manager will react to learning they hired an inspection engineer, as if it were a personal insult, a statement that they do not trust the contractor's skill or honesty.
Once people internalize how important an inspection is while the contractor's liability still applies, and it becomes standard practice, that kind of worry will disappear on its own.
Just as general consumer awareness keeps developing, so does residents' awareness of home inspection.
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