Frequently asked questions

I read a pre-purchase inspection report in PDF, check every finding against the page that contains it, and hand you an analysis: rating out of ten, priorities, repair estimate, negotiation strategy.

Here is what people ask me most: the reports I read, my method, the estimates and the service.

Every residential inspection report in PDF, in French or English: Québec reports, InterNACHI, ASHI, TREC forms, and reports produced by Spectora, HomeGauge, Horizon, Home Inspector Pro, Enzo, Vesta or Lumos. Pre-delivery, condo and multi-unit reports work too.

I read pages as images and text at once, so a good-quality scan works. If the text is unreadable, the analysis will say so rather than make things up.

From 10 to 250 pages. Beyond that, write to support@lumos.property.

I detect it at the door (listing sheet, blank template, article, quote) and stop before analyzing. You are refunded.

In steps, each with its own rules. First I identify the report, its standard and its severity legend. Then I read every page, a few pages at a time, in parallel, and capture each inspector finding with its page and exact sentence. A verifier with no AI checks every quote against the text of the page; what is not there is dropped. I classify every finding on PRISM, Lumos’s building taxonomy (160 categories, 28 domains), and qualify it under the BNQ 3009-500 grid. I merge repetitions: the summary, the detail sheet and the recommendation often describe the same defect. Finally, I write the analysis from those findings, and only from them, with domain rules and regional cost grids.

That is the inspectors’ grid. Observed: the inspector saw the anomaly. To confirm: they saw a sign (a stain, efflorescence) without confirming the problem behind it; only a closer look will tell. Limitation: something could not be inspected (snow on the roof, stored items, panel not opened). ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude do not make these distinctions; they change everything for your decision.

It is anchored on your inspector’s labels (danger, defect to correct, monitor, satisfactory) and on the weight of what must be fixed, not on the count of cosmetic items. The reasoning is written next to it. It is an assistant’s opinion to help you place the house, not a professional appraisal.

The reading is mechanically verified: a finding whose quote is not found on the stated page is dropped. Explanations, estimates and advice then come from those findings only, with the instruction never to add a fact about the house. Lumos measures this on a corpus of real reports: recall of deficiencies, quotes found, stability from one run to the next.

Never. I keep their label and recommendation word for word, and I suggest questions to ask them. If you find a disagreement, the inspector is right, and we want to know.

They are orders of magnitude for your region and currency, for the most likely fix implied by the inspector’s recommendation, within roughly plus or minus 30%. When the report says a specialist must assess first, I do not price it and I tell you. Only written quotes count.

It helps you prepare the conversation: what is reasonable to ask the seller, what is reasonable to accept, and the conditions under which walking away is wiser. Your broker and your notary remain your advisors.

Follow them in order: call the inspector with the questions, get the documents and assessments before your inspection-condition deadline, then negotiate in writing. The roadmap then covers the first year.

Three to six minutes depending on the report length. You watch the reading progress live, and you can close the page: I will write to you when it is ready.

I email you the link as soon as it is done, at the address you gave me at checkout. If you keep the page open, I can also notify you in your browser, when it allows it: click “Notify me here when it’s ready” under the reading, and a notification shows up even if you switched tabs. The tab title also changes to “Your analysis is ready”.

One payment per report, $29, taxes included. Refunded if the file is not a readable inspection report.

Because behind the conversation there is an analysis engine. Every analysis takes dozens of calls to frontier models, including a large model for reading and writing, then a quote verifier with no AI, a 160-category taxonomy, the BNQ 3009-500 grid and regional cost grids. This engine is the result of more than a year of work with building inspectors, it is measured on real reports, and it is guaranteed. A free chat reads part of the document, verifies nothing and guarantees nothing.

Lumos refunds 100%. If you show, with evidence, that I got my analysis wrong, or that the analysis is not relevant to your report, write to support@lumos.property within thirty days, with the link to the analysis and the item in question. We check, and we refund the full amount.

Yes, by its link. The link is personal and not indexed.

Yes. Under your analysis, type your question, or tap “Explain” next to a finding. I answer only from your report and the analysis, citing the pages, and I tell you when the answer is not there. Your questions are kept with your analysis. My answers do not replace your inspector.

The PDF is stored privately in Canada, with Supabase, and used only for your analysis. It trains no model. Write to privacy@lumos.property to have it deleted, along with the analysis.

Lumos, a Québec company that also makes Lumos Inspector, the report-writing application used by building inspectors. I apply to the reports you receive what Lumos learned helping inspectors write them.

Write to support@lumos.property.