VORA - Visually Observable Readily Accessible

VORA - Need to see it, need to access it.

There are many standards adhered to by home inspectors.  In our region of St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador, many of the inspectors use the Canadian Association of Home and Prroperty Inspectors (CAHPI) and American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) Standards of Practice (SOP).  However, there are many others that have similar themes.  Almost all of them use VORA or a variation on the theme.

VORA means Visually Observable and Readily Accessible.  The idea here is pretty straightforward. Essentially it means that we can only inspect systems that we can see and that we can reasonably access.  I will be coming back to this many times in future posts with some great examples but at this point consider this.  A home inspector does not have xray vision.  The inspector has hopefully trained in a good program such as Carson Dunlop or equivalent.  With proper training the inspector is trained in defect recognition but there are limits.

Typically at the time the home inspector visits the home, the buyer has not yet finalized the purchase.   We are guests in the home.  As such, we have to be very careful not to damage or invade the structure.  We cannot cut holes in walls to look inside, we have to be careful when examining electrical systems to not inadvertanly shutdown a critical circuit (grandma could on an oxygen machine upstairs) and so on and so on.

We also have to be concerned with personal safety, possible damage to the structure and access restrictions. Consider this one example.  In a recent inspection we completed, the crawl space entrance was filled with mouilding and other boards riddled with nails.  This rendered the area inaccessible.  There was a definite safety concern from the sharp nails and dificulty getting into and out of the crawl space.  In this case at least part of the crawl space was not Visually Observable and none of it was Readily Accessible.  If it was a board or two then most inspectors will simply move them briefly or crawl around them but in this case that was out of the question.

If an area of the home does not pass the VORA test then an inspector will generally report it as such, inspect as much of it as possible, and move on.  This is common in most of the standards we have reviewed.


Glenn Thorne
Guardian Home Inspections