Newport, Michigan
Looking for a Newport home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Newport, 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 Newport 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 Newport and across Monroe 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 Newport 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 reportLocal knowledge
Newport is not a municipality. It is an unincorporated community, which means it has no government, no boundary and no council of its own — and, more awkwardly for a buyer, it is not all administered by the same township. Part of Newport falls under Berlin Charter Township and part under Frenchtown Township.
There is a specific trap in that, and it catches people because it looks like the opposite of a trap. Berlin Charter Township’s own offices are in Newport — the township moved to a new location on North Dixie Highway, and its board and planning and zoning commission meetings are held there. So the township hall you can drive to in Newport is Berlin’s, and it is entirely natural to assume it covers the whole community.
It does not. Berlin Charter Township describes its own borders as running up against Frenchtown Township on the south, and a Newport address on the wrong side of that line is a Frenchtown property with a Frenchtown assessor, a Frenchtown permit process and a Frenchtown tax bill.
So the first thing to settle on any property here is which township it is actually in, and to settle it from the parcel rather than from the postal address or from which hall is nearest. Everything else follows from that answer, and the two townships are genuinely different administrations rather than two doors of the same one.
A home inspection is not a code inspection or a permit search and we do not present it as one. What we establish is what is physically there and what condition it is in — which, usefully, is the same question whichever township turns out to hold the file.
Before you buy
Which township
Berlin Charter Township publishes its own history and geography, and it is worth reading because it makes the shape of the place clear. The township was formerly part of Ash Township and became independent in 1867. Its borders take in Frenchtown Township to the south and Ash Township to the west, and the Huron River forms most of its northern boundary, alongside Brownstown Township and the cities of Rockwood and Flat Rock.
That is a lot of neighbors for one community to sit against, and it is why a Newport address on its own does not tell you much. What settles it is the parcel: the legal description, the tax identification number, and which assessor holds the record. Your agent or the title work will have it, and either township office can confirm it in a phone call.
Get that answer before you order anything that costs money or takes time. It determines which office issues a permit, which assessor you would appeal to, which board would hear a variance, and whose meeting calendar your project has to fit.
It also determines which township’s published material actually applies to you. Frenchtown Township publishes a good deal about how it handles water, permits and certificates of occupancy on its permit applications page, and none of that governs a parcel on the Berlin side. Reading the wrong township’s guidance carefully is worse than reading none, because it leaves you confident.
What a buyer’s inspection contributes is the part that does not change with the boundary: an accurate, photographed account of the building, what has been altered, and what condition everything is in. That is the same document whichever township you end up dealing with.
Two things worth doing
Berlin Charter Township signposts two things on its front page that are more useful to a new owner than most municipal announcements, and both are free.
The first is a property fraud notification service. It alerts subscribers by email, text or voicemail each time a document is recorded with their name on it. For somebody who has just bought a house, that is a sensible thing to switch on and forget about, because the recording of documents against your name is exactly the thing you would otherwise never notice. The township also points at Monroe County’s alert notification system for emergency information.
The second is a warning, and it is directly relevant if you are buying here with work in mind. The township has published a notice that some residents with an application before its planning commission and zoning board of appeals received an email requesting payment of an invoice by wire transfer.
We are not going to add anything to that beyond the obvious practical rule, which applies anywhere and costs nothing: if a request for money arrives by email in connection with a municipal application, verify it by telephoning the township office on a number you looked up yourself, not one contained in the message. That single habit is worth more than any amount of caution about how the email looked.
It is worth knowing simply because a purchase is exactly when this sort of thing lands. People buying and building are expecting invoices, are dealing with several bodies at once, and are inclined to pay things quickly to keep a closing on track.
The housing
Because Newport is unincorporated it has no housing profile of its own, so we are not going to quote a median build year or a unit count for it — any figure you see attached to the name will in fact describe a township, a postal area or a school district rather than the community itself. That is worth knowing if you are comparing data across places.
What is fair to say is that the property here is varied. When Berlin Charter Township invites nominations for its annual beautification awards, the categories it lists are residential, rural residential, mobile home, farm and commercial — which is a reasonable picture of the range of buildings in this part of Monroe County without putting numbers on any of it.
That range matters to an inspection because the questions are genuinely different. A manufactured home has its own construction, its own anchoring and skirting questions and its own approach to the underside. A rural property brings outbuildings, long drives and more ground for water to cross. A farm property brings structures that were never houses. We establish what we are actually looking at before anything else.
On drainage, which is the thread running through all of them, we report the same things everywhere: where the downspouts actually terminate and whether water is carried away from the building or released at the corner of it, whether there is a sump and where it discharges to, whether there is a backup arrangement, how the ground falls away from each elevation, and where surface water collects and leaves the property.
Inside, the visible condition of the foundation walls, the staining and efflorescence that record where water has been, and whether a basement or crawl space smells like somewhere that stays dry. 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 buried line
What a property here is connected to depends on which township it sits in and on the address itself, so we are not going to tell you. Confirm it in writing for the parcel once you know which office holds it.
What does not change with the boundary is the lateral running from the building out to whatever it drains to. That pipe belongs to the property, it is the owner’s to repair, and no visual inspection reaches inside it. We will not name a material from a build year either — nothing published establishes what lines here are made of, and a guess in a report is worse than no statement at all.
If the property turns out to be on a septic system, the evaluation is specialist work arranged through the Monroe County health department, and it answers questions no visual inspection can: whether a drainfield is failing, and the true condition of the tank. It runs to its own timetable, so it needs arranging early rather than in the last week of a purchase. A water test on a private well belongs in the same conversation.
A sewer camera inspection records what is actually inside the owner’s pipe: roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not. On a septic property it documents the building drain out to the tank — the stretch a septic evaluation does not examine, and nobody’s job by default.
It goes on the same appointment rather than a second visit, and we deliver a full written report with photographs, generally the same day. You can read what our clients say, browse answers to common questions, or get in touch about a specific address in Newport.
Local information from Berlin Charter Township — township website, offices and notices · Frenchtown Charter Township — township website · Frenchtown Charter Township — permit applications · Berlin Charter Township — meeting dates. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Monroe County
Zone 2 is the middle EPA category — the predicted average indoor level across the county sits between 2 and 4 pCi/L.
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 · Monroe County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Newport 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
Mitch was great and thorough the our inspection. He provided explanations and suggestions throughout the service. Highly recommend!
Jaynie GMonroe, MII 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, MIWhat happens
Questions
Both, depending on the parcel. Part of Newport falls under Berlin Charter Township and part under Frenchtown Township, so it has to be settled from the property record rather than from the address.
No, and that is the common mistake. The township moved its offices to North Dixie Highway in Newport and holds its board and planning and zoning meetings there, but its border runs against Frenchtown Township to the south.
Because they are separate administrations. Different assessor, different permit process, different tax bill, different boards and different meeting calendars. Reading the wrong township’s guidance carefully is worse than reading none.
From the parcel: the legal description and tax identification number, which your agent or the title work will have. Either township office can confirm it in a phone call.
A free notification service the township signposts, which alerts subscribers by email, text or voicemail each time a document is recorded with their name on it. It is a sensible thing for a new owner to switch on.
The township published a notice that some residents with an application before its planning commission and zoning board of appeals received an email requesting payment of an invoice by wire transfer. Verify any such request by telephoning the office on a number you looked up yourself.
There is no single answer, and no housing profile for the community itself since it is unincorporated. The township’s own award categories cover residential, rural residential, mobile home, farm and commercial property, which gives a fair sense of the range.
Yes, because the one thing that does not change with the township boundary is that the line out from the building belongs to you and no visual inspection reaches inside it. A camera inspection goes on the same visit.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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Your local Newport home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
