how do you protect yourself from cut floor joints?

[Steven Mitchell]

We recently bought a house, after getting two foundation bids, a stinker with cut floor joints.  This added another 10k to the rehab and killed the deal for us.  

How do you guys protect yourselves from this?  

We talked to an inspector.  Getting an inspection wouldnt have saved us as they say "we can only inspect what we can see".  

[David O]

Confusing post...so confusing I'm curious. I think you are talking about floor joists? What is the context behind this question? Define cut, so they are literally cut in half? I assume it is a basement or crawl? If so how would you not see or feel floor joists that are this bad? 10k to fix a few floor joists seems crazy high...we must be missing something here.

So many questions...a picture would help.