Field Work Days:
Monday through Saturday (not Sunday). Saturday is optional. Field Work Hours: 8:00 am through 6:00pm(or until shortly before dusk, whichever comes first). This means you cannot arrive at the first inspection prior to 8:00 am and you must be done with your last inspection by 6:00 pm or shortly before dusk, whichever comes first.

Encountering Minor Children Home Alone
If you knock on the door and are greeted by a young person (under the age of 18 years) and they indicate that they are home alone, do not proceed with the inspection process. Briefly let them know whom you are and why you're there and hand them your business card (provided by Allied) - ask them to give it to their parent when they arrive home. You will need to estimate the information as best as possible from the street and default all information to any information provided by the agent. Likewise, if you arrive at a property and no one answers the door, but you can clearly hear voices and/or other noise inside, also treat these situations as if they were young ones home alone. Be sure to add a comment to explain the situation either way.

Discussions With Customers or Tenants
Please refrain from mentioning or discussing any other business ventures you or anyone you know may be involved with while completing inspections. This includes even the casual mention of I know someone who could take care of that for you type of conversation.

Do not discuss any hazards or conditions that you may find on the home or premises with anyone on the property, especially the tenant. An example of a repercussion from this issue was a letter of complaint that was forwarded from an agent to the Manager regarding an upset customer for this circumstance. Apparently, the inspector may have mentioned the danger involved in the front steps with no railing while speaking to the tenant. The tenant became extremely worried and contacted their landlord, our customer, in a panic. The customer stated that their insurance issues should be considered a confidential matter and should not have been discussed with their tenant, especially prior to them being made aware of the issue by their agent. Their agent did end up contacting them after the inspection results were returned and they acted immediately to remedy the problem, but were still very frustrated with what they felt was an inappropriate comment made by the inspector. We also prohibit the inspector from discussing hazards and conditions with the customers directly. Any problems will need to be addressed with the customer by their agent or another representative.

Types of Comments on Reports
Be sure to use politically correct comments on your inspections and do not list opinions you may have. Only state the facts and use the terms debris or discarded items/autos instead of the words trash, junk, etc. Do not use any type of racial comments when describing the customer or any other individual interviewed. It is acceptable to comment on the language difference if a communication barrier is present between you and the interviewed as this sometimes has a bearing on the inspection process.

Making General Changes on Inspections
In general, any changes made to an inspection (basically anything you are reporting that differs from the any of the agent's information if you have been provided with any) should have a brief comment of explanation. An example of this would be if the agent has the foundation listed as slab or crawl space on a report or as no basement on a report and you can visually verify that there are basement windows. The comment should be, There were basement windows visible, the agent listed the foundation as slab (or crawl space).

Making Interior Changes on Inspections
We do not ask you to enter the homes to perform an interior inspection, therefore, please do not answer the interior questions or make changes to the interior items reported by the agent UNLESS you can visually verify the change. Areas not to touch include (but is not limited to) kitchen and bathroom quality or quantity, flooring type or percent and heating/cooling type or percent. Some exceptions to this rule is if a fireplace chimney, AC unit or evaporative cooler is visible on the exterior of the home; you will need to make the comment that you saw it on the exterior. In general, this means that you will not need to ask the customer or tenant any interior questions except for the basement question you will still need to ask if they have a basement and what percent is finished if any. comments powered by Disqus