At first the job description sounds okay and one of the responsibilities described is to perform thorough inspections of balconies and also to conduct necessary repairs and maintenance on balconies. Where it gets shocking though is under their requirements for this job, which actually is not a job...
On page 2 of the job description they want you to have proven experience as a "handyman" along with experience in balcony inspections and repairs. I personally have never met a handyman that has any inkling of how to waterproof a deck or fix it, never mind properly inspect it for the purpose of saving lives. Dr Balcony has no requirement for having any license listed in their help washed ad, so we ask, are unlicensed handymen are who they're looking to contract with to inspect critical life/safety areas such as decks and walkways? It's looks like it. We ask, Seriously?
And as we said this is not a job it is a contract position where as this listing says, you will be a 1099 employee and be paid $280 a day plus gas reimbursement according to the benefits section. You will also be required to have your own insurance coverage as well as your own vehicle and valid driver's license you will be working independently and manage your own schedule.
Those terms are there to try to allow Dr. Balcony to say that you are an independent contractor. However they are going to assign you a job and you are going to have to do the job on the dates that they have agreed to do it with for the association. We're not lawyers, but in our opinion, from what we have read that is not an independent contractor position it is an employee position and Dr Balcony appears to be seeking to evade paying payroll taxes. California law is very clear about who is an employee and who can be classified as an independent contractor.
If you are independently contracting with Dr Balcony you will get a 1099 and you will have to pay taxes including social security to the government and for $35 an hour, you are also paying your own insurance and your vehicle costs. In our opinion that is giving away your labor. Our opinion is this is a bad deal for an independent contractor. This type of arrangement should be paying around $75 to $90 per hour in our opinion.
While this is bad on so many ways, the worst part is that HOAs who believe that they are getting experienced inspectors with an engineer on site performing the inspection themselves are instead getting contract laborers who may not have the experience required to be able to determine if there are life safety issues involved on the EEE they are inspecting.
To be fair Dr Balcony does have an advertisement looking for a junior civil engineer to do inspections as well, however the job position requirements do not show the need to have a license. An engineer who recently graduated from school would become an engineer in training working under a licensed civil or structural engineer. Our understanding from working with Engineers is that a unlicensed engineer may not perform the inspection without a licensed engineer being present and overseeing the work.
if the report they issue is signed by an engineer, but that engineer didn't perform the inspection, is it a valid report under sb326? This is why it is so important to qualify your inspector and be sure that they are absolutely qualified under the bill. We know multiple companies that are licensed Structural Engineers or architects who work in tandem with waterproofing experts who write supplemental reports that are appended to the engineer or architects report. We know several structural engineering companies that also do their own waterproofing inspections and write a report. These reports in our opinion are a valid report that meets the requirements of 326.
All in all, I believe that HOAs are being ripped off by unethical people. Does your HOA want "handymen" doing it's life safety critical inspections instead of an experienced engineer? I think the answer is clearly no.
HOAs must protect themselves against these kind of inspectors who look good on paper or the Internet now a days, but behind the scenes, in our opinion, are cheating you. I have to ask, are these handymen acting as engineers without holding an engineers license?
