DIARY OF A BUILDING INSPECTOR…15/10/2026

Jason has been inspecting property since 2010. When he started he was an unknown quantity and many conveyancers, real estate agents and mortgage brokers gave him a chance to show them what kind of building inspector he was.

Turns out, for many real estate agents, he wasn’t “the right kind” of building inspector.

So we found our people. We’ve always traded on honesty and that’s a hard one in the real estate industry.

I wrote THIS BLOG about Independence in Building Inspections in 2020, a full 10 years after we began this journey.

I was hesitant at the time to really call it out, because it’s a small world and you can’t be seen to be treading on toes.

But today I feel liberated to be more candid: A building inspection report is only as good as the building inspector writing it, and if he is a person of poor character you may as well save your money.

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This is a true account of the world we are living in:

Since mid 2025, a real estate agent in Murwillumbah has been actively (and unashamedly) blocking us from inspecting any of their properties. We have at least one, sometimes two buyers a month wanting us to inspect one of their properties for sale but we have been blocked at every opportunity.

I’ve sent them a Concern Notice under the Defamation Act (2025) NSW but that had no effect and the Principal there has been more determined than ever to block us. There’s really nothing else I can get him on - trust me, I’ve checked.

Buyers are uniformly disgusted by this blatant move to restrict their freedom of choice and limit their ability to get to the truth about the property they are buying, but people are generally powerless to press the point or walk away. He’s the boss. So they have to select a different building inspector or miss out.

And then A CURRENT AFFAIR did THIS EXPOSE October 12th, 2026, in our area, and I can’t help but feel vindicated.

Today I took yet another call for a building inspection on one of their properties that I had to turn down…the lady commented that she wasn’t going to call the building inspector that this agency had recommended, as she’d spotted him on A Current Affair.

The universe told me a joke and I laughed.

After all the money that agency has cost us in lost business, I feel slightly redeemed that this building inspector who trades on the slippery good graces of real estate agents has been named on A Current Affair and now, has that ever so slight headwind to contend with.

After years of having our own headwind - Being Too Honest - it’s a warm feeling.