Lathrup Village, Michigan
Looking for a Lathrup Village home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Lathrup Village, seven days a week. Home inspection reports come back in 24 hours.
Schedule your inspectionCall 734-331-3269
Services
For buyers, sellers, and homeowners keeping an eye on the place they already own. On new construction we also do pre-drywall inspections and 11-month builder’s warranty inspections. Our certified inspectors walk every major system in your Lathrup Village home and tell you plainly what they found — then put it in a photo-rich digital report within 24 hours.
Following the InterNACHI Standards of Practice:
Included free with every home buyer inspection— and none of them require us to sell your information.
SatisfactionIf you are unhappy with your inspector on the day of the inspection, before you have seen your report, tell us and we will make it right — or you owe us nothing.
30-Day WarrantyA free 30-day Guard home warranty trial, negotiated for you with no obligation. Activate it whenever you are ready.
$100 OffThe buyer’s protection guarantee: if the first home we inspect for you does not make it to the closing table, for any reason, we take $100 off any further home buyer inspection within 30 days of the original.
Optional services at an additional cost — not part of a standard inspection. Tap one to see what it covers.
A camera down the main sewer line, watching its condition from the inside — roots, breaks, bellies and blockages no visual inspection can find. More about sewer scope inspections
The wood-destroying organism report VA buyers are typically asked to provide, on the federal NPMA-33 form. Carried out during the same visit. More about Veterans WDO inspections
Up to five air samples sent to an accredited laboratory, added to the same appointment rather than booked as a second visit. More about mold inspection and testing
View a sample report
Offices, retail, multifamily and warehouses in Lathrup Village and across Oakland County. Know what condition a building is in before you sign — or stay ahead of problems in the one you already own. Reports in 24 to 72 hours depending on size.
Following the CCPIA commercial standards:
Commonly added to a commercial inspection at additional cost.
Commercial laterals are longer, older and carry more. A camera is the only way to see the condition of the one you are buying. More about sewer scope inspections
Air samples to an accredited laboratory, which matters most in buildings that have sat empty or had a roof or plumbing leak. More about mold inspection and testing
View a sample report
Add either to a Lathrup Village home or commercial inspection, or book it on its own. We test and we never remediate, so there is nothing to sell you on the back of a result — the number you get is just the number.
Radon measured in house on a professional continuous monitor; mold samples to an accredited laboratory:
The other things worth testing while somebody is already there.
Carried out after remediation on the treated area and the areas next to it, to confirm what was found. More about mold inspection and testing
A damp basement can have several causes, and the buried sewer line is the one a visual inspection cannot check. A scope rules it in or out. More about sewer scope inspections
View a sample reportLathrup Village housing stock
Lathrup Village has roughly 1,632 housing units and about 92% of them are single-family detached. Housing that went up mostly in one era has mostly one era’s problems — which is genuinely useful to know before you buy, because it tells you what to look at first.
Most of it went up in the 1950s — 442 homes, around 27% of the town. At 92% single-family it is almost entirely detached houses, so the inspection is nearly always of a whole building rather than one unit inside one.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $261,800. 91% are owner-occupied, which is high even for this area.
None of this is a prediction about a particular house. It is where a Lathrup Village home inspector starts looking in a home of this age, and what we photograph and write up either way.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Lathrup Village was built
82% of homes here run on utility gas, and 9 still heat with oil. If yours is one of them, the tank is the thing to ask about — where it is, and whether it was ever buried. Another 11 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Lathrup Village changed how it bills for water and sewer on the first of July 2026, and if you are buying here that matters more than it sounds.
Until then, residents were charged a four-unit minimum for both water and sewer regardless of what they actually used. The City has now moved to a ready-to-serve structure: fixed charges covering the cost of having the system there at all, shown as separate line items on the bill, plus a per-unit charge on actual consumption.
The practical consequence for a buyer is simple and easy to miss. A bill from last year is no longer a guide to what this year will cost, because the structure underneath it has changed. If a seller shows you historic bills, treat them as history rather than as a forecast.
The City is unusually open about why it did this. It worked with a state water association on a review of utility finances, which concluded that carrying on with the old structure would have left the utility funds hundreds of thousands of dollars in arrears by the middle of 2027.
There is a second thing worth knowing if you have a lawn you care about: the City does not allow secondary meters for irrigation, and it explains its reasoning rather than simply refusing.
The housing is postwar and largely unchanged since. About 1,070 of the roughly 1,632 units were built between 1940 and 1969, with 442 in the 1950s alone, and only 114 have been added since 1990.
Before you buy
Water and sewer
The City’s announcement of the billing changes is worth reading in full if you are buying here, because it explains the reasoning as well as the change.
The new ready-to-serve charges cover the fixed costs of the system: meter and billing costs, maintenance of the public water and sewer pipes and equipment, access to the systems, infrastructure repairs and replacement, future infrastructure needs, debt obligations, and keeping the system available around the clock. On top of that sits a per-unit charge based on what you actually use.
That separation is a more honest way of billing, but it does mean the shape of a household bill has changed. A low-usage household that previously paid a four-unit minimum is in a different position from one that used well above it.
On irrigation, the City’s explanation is genuinely clear. Its sewer costs from the regional sanitary drainage district are calculated partly on the total amount of water used within the City. So water that goes on a lawn through a secondary meter would still generate sewer cost for the City, even though it never reaches a sewer. Allowing secondary meters without changing the rate structure would simply shift that cost onto everybody else.
Whether or not you agree with the conclusion, it is a properly explained one, and it means the answer here is settled: budget outdoor watering as water and sewer, not water alone.
That in turn puts a premium on not wasting any. We check the accessible plumbing carefully on every inspection — operating fixtures, looking for weeping at supply connections, valves and stops, checking under sinks and around the water heater, examining visible piping, and looking for staining, corrosion and mineral trails that show a leak has been running. Where the meter is accessible we check it with nothing running.
The housing
Lathrup Village is a postwar suburb that has changed very little. There are 300 units from the 1940s, 442 from the 1950s and 328 from the 1960s, alongside 239 predating 1940. Fewer than 120 houses have been built since 1990.
That concentration makes the findings predictable, because systems installed in the same era reach the end of their service lives together. A house from 1955 is now seventy years old, which puts essentially everything mechanical and electrical into its second or third generation.
Electrical is the first question and the one that varies most. A house of that period was wired for a fraction of today’s demand, and nearly all have been upgraded — but a genuine rewire and a newer panel fitted in front of original distribution look similar from the outside and are very different to live with. Seventy years of circuits added in stages by different hands is normal. We report what the panel actually contains, how the accessible wiring is arranged, and where work appears to have been added piecemeal.
Plumbing follows the same pattern: renewed in part rather than in whole, leaving transitions between materials at the joins, and those transitions are where problems concentrate. On a city that has just restructured its water billing, the condition of that plumbing has a direct financial edge.
Roofs on this stock are on a third or fourth covering. Heating equipment is two or three generations from the original, and a newer high-efficiency appliance fitted into an older chimney or vent arrangement is a common and specific thing we check. Insulation and ventilation reflect mid-century standards, which usually leaves a real improvement available in the attic.
Basements on houses of this era repay attention, because seventy years of landscaping and drainage changes around a building tend to show up down there.
Radon testing and mold inspection and testing can be added to any visit, and commercial building inspections to the CCPIA standard are available for commercial property.
The city
The City has a comprehensive plan update in progress, with a public engagement site attached to it. We have not read the draft and we are not going to describe a single proposal in it.
But if you are buying with plans of your own — an addition, a home business, anything that depends on what the city intends for its land use — it is worth seeing where that process has got to before you commit. A plan update is one of the few pieces of local research with a genuine shelf life.
The City publishes its ordinances in a searchable online code library, which makes checking a specific requirement straightforward, and it runs an online issue reporting system for residents to flag problems in the public realm.
A buyer’s inspection is not a permit search and does not assess ordinance compliance. What it does is establish the condition of the building so the questions you take to the City are specific ones. We deliver a full written report with photographs, generally the same day, while you still have room to act on what it says.
Drainage
On a city where two thirds of the housing dates from the 1940s to the 1960s, most of what we report on the outside comes down to where water goes once it leaves the roof.
We record where the downspouts terminate and whether they carry water clear of the walls or drop it at the foundation, where any sump pump discharges and whether there is a backup arrangement, and how the ground falls away from the building. On a house of this age all three have usually been altered at least once by somebody thinking about the garden rather than the basement.
Seventy years of added paths, raised beds, new drives, landscaping and settled ground change how water moves around a foundation, and the evidence of what that has caused turns up in the basement rather than in the garden.
Inside, we look for staining and tide lines on foundation walls, efflorescence and mineral deposits, replaced lower wall finishes, and corrosion at the base of mechanical equipment. Equipment raised up on blocks is usually a story about something that happened once, and it is always worth asking about.
Most of what we find on the drainage side is straightforward to correct and cheap relative to what it prevents. It is simply the difference between a dry basement and a recurring problem, and far better known before you own the house than after.
The buried line
The line running from the building out to the sewer main belongs to the owner, and no visual inspection reaches inside it.
On a city where two thirds of the housing predates 1970 and barely a hundred houses have been built since 1990, there is effectively no new stock and therefore effectively no new laterals. On a 1950s house that pipe has been in the ground seventy years, under a street whose trees have had exactly that long to mature.
We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Lathrup Village laterals are generally made of, and a guess in a report is worse than no statement at all. The same goes for the water service line: the City publishes nothing on it that we found, and material tracks the era a house was connected rather than the era it was built. Ask the City directly.
A sewer camera inspection records what is actually inside: roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not. On housing of this age and this uniformity it is among the most useful things you can add, because the lateral is invisible, not covered by a standard inspection, and generally unknown to the seller.
It is also one of the few things that genuinely varies house to house in a city where almost everything else shares a build era.
A camera inspection is added to the same appointment rather than booked separately. You can read what our clients say, look through answers to common questions, or get in touch about a specific address in Lathrup Village.
Local information from City of Lathrup Village — announcement of water and sewer billing changes · City of Lathrup Village — code of ordinances · City of Lathrup Village — comprehensive plan update and public engagement · City of Lathrup Village — staff directory and departments. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Oakland County
Zone 2 is the middle EPA category — the predicted average indoor level across the county sits between 2 and 4 pCi/L. What a zone cannot tell you is anything about one house: 29% of tests actually run in Oakland County still came back at or above the EPA’s 4 pCi/L action level. A zone is a prediction of an average, and nobody lives in an average.
We place a continuous monitor for 48 hours and read the result on site — no mail-in kit, no lab wait. How radon testing works · Oakland County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones. Elevated-result share from the Michigan Indoor Radon Program.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Lathrup Village home inspector.
Family owned since 2009, more than 16,000 inspections completed and over 2,000 five-star reviews across Michigan. We also handle home buyer inspections, commercial building inspections, mold testing and radon testing.
We do not sell mold remediation or radon mitigation, so there is nothing to gain from a result that comes back bad. The number you get is just the number.
Radon, mold, sewer scope and wood-destroying organism inspections go on the same appointment as the home inspection rather than costing you a second morning.
Most people do, and it is the most useful hour of the whole purchase. Ask anything while we are standing in front of it.
InterNACHI and CCPIA certified, with four Certified Master Inspectors and National Home Inspector Examination passes on the team — none of which Michigan requires. The standards we inspect to are published and you can hold the work against them.
Including weekends, because inspection windows sit on closing dates and closing dates do not care what day it is.
Reviews
I recently hired Trademark for a full home inspection on a new purchase, including sewer scope and radon testing. It was a phenomenal experience from beginning to end. Our inspector, Mitch, did a fantastic job explaining all the findings, and the digital report with photos and videos was superb. Would definitely recommend without hesitation.
Salina HamiltonOak Park, MIWe had Mitch inspect our prospective house and he was amazing. He was thorough, patient to answer my questions and provide feedback on what areas he would recommend having a follow up expert and why. The office was responsive and I was able to book multiple services to be done in the same visit (inspection, radon test, sewer scope).
Chris PlaweckiOak Park, MIExcellent sums up the entire experience, from the initial call to set up the appointment with staff that was informative and helpful, up until the actual inspection that was very professional and thorough with any and all questions I had answered. I would highly recommend Trademark to anyone who needs inspection services. Thanks again Curt, my inspector, for an excellent job.
Johnny Thomas JrSouthfield, MIWhat happens
Questions
From 1 July 2026 the City moved from a four-unit minimum for both water and sewer to a ready-to-serve structure: fixed charges covering the cost of maintaining and providing the system, shown as separate line items, plus a per-unit charge on actual usage.
Not really. The structure underneath them has changed, so a bill from a previous year reflects a system that no longer exists. If a seller shows you historic bills, treat them as history rather than as a forecast.
No. The City explains that its sewer costs from the regional sanitary drainage district are calculated partly on the total water used within the City, so irrigation water would still generate sewer cost even though it never reaches a sewer. Budget outdoor watering as water and sewer.
It worked with a state water association on a review of utility finances, which concluded that continuing with the previous structure would have left the utility funds hundreds of thousands of dollars in arrears by the middle of 2027.
About 1,070 of roughly 1,632 units were built between 1940 and 1969, with 442 in the 1950s alone. Fewer than 120 houses have been added since 1990, so this is a postwar suburb that has changed very little.
The electrical, and what "upgraded" actually means — a genuine rewire is a very different proposition from a newer panel with seventy-year-old distribution behind it. Then partial plumbing renewals and their material transitions, third or fourth roof coverings, and heating equipment fitted into older venting.
No, and we will not guess. Service line material tracks the era a house was connected rather than the era it was built, and the City publishes nothing on it that we found. It is a fair question to put to the City directly, and on a city this age it is worth putting.
Yes, more than in most places. With barely a hundred houses built since 1990 there are effectively no new laterals, and on a 1950s house the pipe has been under a tree-lined street for seventy years. A camera inspection is added to the same visit.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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From the blog
October 22, 2017
May 18, 2024
November 11, 2020
Your local Lathrup Village home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
