We were recently hired to do a follow-up inspection at a condo in the Los Angeles area. The client, an individual homeowner, had serious concerns about the report the association received from Dr Balcony. Their concerns began when the inspection was done, saying that a person showed up, said they weren’t licensed but that “someone” who was a licensed architect would review their photographs and information before signing the report.

We got a copy of the Dr Balcony report and reviewed it before we did our own inspection. (Please note our inspection was not an SB326 inspection.) Many of the photographs in the report were blurry and weren’t marked up to identify a defect that supposedly was in the photograph (we mark up all our photographs to show you exactly what defect we found) and the report was difficult to read. We completely agree with our client, I’ve read more than a few reports from other companies and Dr Balcony’s report is a tough read. Defect codes that are for their internal use confuse readers, information on an EEE are in different places and many photographs are of irrelevant subjects.

An example of that is Dr Balcony inspectors seem to obsess over code issues that SB 326 doesn’t require us to concern ourselves with. (We do check railing heights & railing stiles and note that they may not meet current code, same with stairs, but these aren’t noted as defects, rather we advise that the HOA may wish to address these in the future and that your insurance company may require upgrading in order to renew a policy).