Inspection agreements and e-sign that stay with the job

Inspection agreements are legally significant. They are not a PDF you email from a personal laptop and hope someone prints. Home inspection software should keep a versioned record of the agreement, the inspection, the client, the timestamp, the signature, and acceptance metadata. Once signed, content should not silently change because you edited a template on Tuesday. Inspecta Home 360 puts contracts in Settings, sends them from the job, and collects typed e-sign in the client portal. Inspecta Home does not inspect houses. You stay the firm on the contract.

This sits inside home inspection software that also writes the report and collects the fee. A contract tool that does not know whether the report was held is another tab to forget. Pair agreements with hold-until-paid so the PDF does not go out before the limitations you care about are executed.

Default agreement, then service-specific

Open Settings → Contracts. The screen heading is Online contracts. Keep a default agreement for everyday residential jobs, then add one per service when the language should change — 4-point, radon, commercial, reinspection. The list shows the default first, then service-specific ones, then any you turned off. Tap a name to edit, or New agreement to start from the standard text.

Use this agreement for: Default covers every job unless that service has its own active agreement. If two active agreements share the same default or the same service, you will see Overlap — turn one off or give this a different service so jobs know which to load. Active loads this on new jobs. Turn Active off to keep the wording without using it.

The Help article write contracts and send for signature is the click-by-click. Click a field chip (client, property, fee, company, date) to drop it at the cursor. Do not type dollar codes by hand unless you want to. Preview sample fills a fake job so you can read the wording.

Who signs, and how

The client always signs — the primary buyer on the job. Turn on co-client if a second buyer must sign, and agent if the listing or buyer’s agent must sign. Send from the project. Signed vs waiting shows on the card. Clients sign in the portal, not in a random attachment that never comes back.

Typed e-sign in the portal is on every plan, including Solo. Team and Scale can choose DocuSign or Dropbox Sign and paste live keys when you are ready; leave keys blank to use the demo gateway. Solo stays on typed signatures. Pick the method that matches how your clients actually finish paperwork. A fancy vendor that agents ignore is worse than typed e-sign they complete on a phone.

Send the agreement as soon as the job is booked when that is your policy, not after the walk when everyone is tired. Buyers sign faster before they have a roof opinion to argue with. Pair the send with a short message that names the property and the fee. If you require an agent signature, tell the agent at booking so they are not surprised by a portal invite during negotiations.

Signed vs waiting should be visible to office and field. Nobody should have to ask “did they sign” in a group text. If the hold is on, the portal already knows. If the hold is off because you prepaid, the agreement can still be required — just do not pretend the PDF is gated when it is not. The job should tell the truth.

Hold the report until the agreement is done

A signed contract without a paid invoice is still unfinished business for many firms. A paid invoice without a signed contract is worse. Use hold the report until they sign and pay so the portal explains the gate. When both are done, the hold lifts. You stayed covered; they got the document.

Do not side-channel a draft report “so they can see it” while the agreement is unsigned. That email is the report. The limitations you meant to attach are not. Process beats exception.

Historical reproducibility

If templates change later, previously signed agreements must remain historically reproducible. Inspecta Home 360 applies contract edits to new jobs. Agreements already sent stay as they were. That is the only acceptable model for something a client executed. If a tool re-renders last year’s signature packet from today’s boilerplate, find another tool.

Keep records of version, inspection, client, timestamp, signature, acceptance, and relevant metadata. Auditability — who, what, when, before, after — matters as the firm grows. You will not remember which roof limitation you used in March. The job will.

Messages that point at the portal

Client emails and texts can tell people the agreement is waiting. Edit those templates under Settings → Notifications. Turn a message off if you do not want it. Do not invent a parallel DocuSign from a personal account that the job cannot see. If it is not on the project, the office cannot answer “did they sign.”

Write like an inspector, not like a novel

The agreement should name the property, the fee, the limitations, and who must sign. Field chips exist so those values come from the job instead of a stale merge. Preview with sample data and read it out loud. If a sentence would embarrass you in front of an agent, cut it. If two active agreements overlap, fix the overlap before a job loads the wrong radon language onto a full home.

Co-client and agent signature requirements are operational choices. A second buyer who never gets a portal invite will not sign. An agent required to sign who never opens email will stall the hold. Only require the people you actually need. Then send from the project and watch signed vs waiting on the card.

Inspection agreements and e-sign belong on the job, in the portal, next to the invoice and the report. Inspecta Home 360 is the software. You are still the party to the contract. Write it once, send it from the card, hold the PDF until it is done.