Inspector Confidentiality Issue

[Nathan W.]

Hey all, I have a strange question regarding inspector ethics and civil implications of sharing info. I paid for an inspection on my Mom's house which I am in charge of selling as part of her estate and fixed all the safety/deficient issues the inspector noted.  Small town with only a handful of inspectors and the buyers ended up with the same inspector now that we are under contract and he divulged some info to them that I feel was unethical at the least and potential breach of our contract.

The basement had some pretty bad water leakage issues with what appeared to be black mold on the drywall just above the baseboards in a couple of places. After the inspection, I paid a company to install a basement drainage system that involved trenching out around the perimeter and installing drainage and a sump system.  Pretty good system and we have been bone dry ever since.

Part of that process involved removing the drywall up four feet from the floor and while it was removed I scrubbed any areas that looked dirty or moldy on the cinderblock in accordance with CDC guidelines for mold removal (actually double their guidelines since I scrubbed it with bleach and water once and then a few days later again with detergent and water).  

Drywall team came back in and installed new drywall and painted and did the flooring and buttoned everything back up and the space looks great.  I have no concerns at all about water penetration and mold there now.

But the inspector revealed something regarding mold to the buyer's because their agent asked my agent about it.  My contract with the inspector makes pretty clear he and I are the parties to the agreement and information should not be divulged from that inspection to others.  

What are your thoughts? Anything I should look for here? It hasn't killed the deal yet and the buyers haven't come back asking for anything at this point, but the inspection was just yesterday.

[Russell Brazil]

Id say the inspector is obligated to tell the buyer all information about the house. Not doing so would be blatant malpractice. 

in fact its very concerning that you would want to hide anything from a potential buyer. You should be providing a copy of your report to buyers with receipts of issues you had fixed.  Not disclosing these latent defects actually may put you in quite the predicament. Virginia is a caveat emptor state, however you can not hide latent defects, and doing so with the mold could jeapordoze someones life and cause death if they have a mold allergy.