North Branch, Michigan
Looking for a North Branch home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in North Branch, 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 North Branch 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 North Branch and across Lapeer 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 North Branch 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 reportNorth Branch housing stock
North Branch has roughly 495 housing units and about 58% 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 years before 1940 — 139 homes, around 28% of the town. It is also less detached-house territory than most of the area at 58%, so condominiums, duplexes and small multi-family buildings are a bigger share of what we inspect here — and those bring their own questions about what is yours to maintain and what belongs to the association.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $108,500. Only 55% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, so a good share of what we inspect here is bought as a rental or sold with tenants in place — which changes what access on the day looks like.
None of this is a prediction about a particular house. It is where a North Branch 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 North Branch was built
75% of homes here run on utility gas, and 2 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 14 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
North Branch publishes a fee schedule, and reading it tells you something more useful than the numbers themselves: in this village, the permit is not what costs money. The process is.
Most permits not otherwise listed are ten dollars. A right-of-way permit is fifty. But a regular planning commission meeting is charged at $330 plus expenses, a special meeting or a rezoning at $430 plus expenses including attorney fees, and every board of appeals meeting at $250.
So the question that determines what a project costs here is not "what permit do I need?" but "does this have to go in front of a board?" A straightforward job that needs nothing more than a permit is inexpensive. A job that triggers commission review, a variance or a rezoning is an order of magnitude more, before anyone has laid a brick.
That is worth establishing before you buy if part of your plan involves changing the property — and it is a question the village can answer quickly.
Two other figures on that schedule are worth knowing as a new owner. There is a fifty dollar restoration fee to turn the water back on, which matters if you are buying somewhere vacant. And an out-of-hours service call is charged at $222 for up to two hours and $111 an hour after that.
One caveat: the schedule carries several different approval dates and its own footer disagrees with them, so treat the figures as published rather than as certainly current, and confirm with the village.
Before you buy
What work costs
The village’s published fee schedule is short and unusually revealing. The permit line reads, in effect, ten dollars for anything not specifically listed. Everything expensive on the sheet is a meeting.
A regular planning commission meeting is $330 plus expenses, and the schedule notes that if publications are required for a meeting there is an additional charge. A special meeting is $430. A special approval meeting is $430. A rezoning is $430 plus expenses, with attorney fees given as the example. A subdivision plat is $430 plus five dollars a lot. Every board of appeals meeting is $250.
There is also a site plan review bond referred to in the zoning ordinance, which the fee schedule reports as six percent. We have not read the zoning ordinance and are not going to characterize how that works — only to note that the schedule points at the zoning book rather than setting it out itself, so that is where the detail lives.
For a buyer the practical instruction is short. Before you commit to a property you intend to change, describe the intended change to the village and ask one question: does this need to go before the planning commission or the board of appeals? The answer moves the cost of the project by hundreds of dollars before construction, and it moves the timeline as well.
A home inspection is not a permit search or a zoning opinion, and we do not present it as one. What it does is establish what is physically present and in what condition, so the question you take to the village is about a real building rather than an intention. A buyer’s inspection is the usual starting point.
The village also has an industrial park, priced on the same schedule at $10,000 per acre, and publishes a DDA corridor plan and tax increment finance documents. Commercial building inspections to the CCPIA standard are available where a building is commercial.
Utilities
The same village website carries two fees that are easy to walk into without noticing.
The first is a fifty dollar restoration fee to turn the water back on. If you are buying a property that has been sitting empty — which, on a village where a good deal of the housing predates 1940, is not unusual — the water may well be off, and restoring it is a chargeable service rather than an automatic one.
It is also worth knowing before an inspection. We cannot properly test plumbing, run fixtures under load, check for leaks or assess a water heater if the supply is off. Where utilities are not on, we say so plainly in the report and identify what could not be assessed — but the better outcome is to have the water and power on before we arrive. On a vacant property here, that means arranging the restoration in advance.
The second is the after-hours service charge: $222 for up to two hours and $111 an hour thereafter. That is what it costs to get someone out beyond normal hours. Not a reason for alarm, just a number worth having in mind, particularly in winter.
Both figures come from the village’s own schedule. Because that document carries inconsistent dates, confirm the current amounts before relying on them.
The housing mix
At 58% single-family, around 42% of North Branch’s housing is something other than a detached house. In a village with a pre-1940 core that generally means converted upper floors, duplexes, small multi-unit buildings and mixed commercial and residential in the center.
Those raise questions a single-family inspection does not. Where does one unit’s responsibility end and the next begin. Is the roof shared, and who has been maintaining it. Are the services separately metered, or does one supply feed several units. Is there a common stair, a shared basement, a shared attic void.
Access is the practical constraint. We cannot inspect what we cannot get into, so entry to units, common areas and any shared plant needs arranging in advance rather than on the day. Where access is refused or impossible we say so plainly in the report rather than quietly leaving a gap.
The utility point above applies with more force too: on a multi-unit building, establishing which supplies serve which units, and whether all of them are on, is part of scoping the visit properly.
Tell us what the building actually is when you book and we will tell you honestly which inspection you need and what it will and will not cover.
The housing
About 139 of roughly 495 units predate 1940, the 1940s through the 1970s are fairly evenly filled, and then 68 units arrive in the 2000s with nothing recorded since.
On the older stock the inspection reads eighty or more years of accumulated change. Electrical rebuilt in stages by different hands, with mixed wiring types meeting in the same box, ungrounded receptacles, undersized or overfilled panels and overfused circuits. Original service capacity is frequently the practical limit on what a modern household wants to run.
Plumbing tends to have been renewed in part rather than in whole, so material transitions where old meets new are where problems concentrate. Original galvanized supply, where it survives, corrodes from the inside and shows as reduced flow and discolored water long before anything leaks.
Roof coverings will be several generations deep. Heating equipment is typically several replacements from the original, and how well each was fitted and vented matters more than how new the current one looks.
Foundations from before 1940 are usually stone or early block, and their condition depends far more on how water has been managed around the building than on how they were built. So we record where the downspouts terminate, where any sump pump discharges and whether there is a backup, and how the ground falls away from the building.
The 2000s houses are the opposite exercise — twenty to twenty-five years old and arriving at a first full round of replacements, with original roof coverings, failed double-glazing seals and deck ledger connections the recurring findings. Radon testing and mold inspection and testing can be added to any visit.
The buried line
The line running out from the building belongs to the owner, and no visual inspection reaches inside it. Under a pre-1940 house it is often the oldest untouched component on the whole property.
We will not name a material from a build year. Nothing published establishes what North Branch lines are generally made of, and a guess in a report is worse than no statement at all.
A sewer camera inspection records what is actually in there: roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not. In an old platted village with mature street trees, roots are the common finding and they give no warning until the day the drains back up.
On a building with several units there is more reason to look, not less. Several households sharing one drain line put far more through it than a single family would, and a partial blockage announces itself much faster.
One practical note specific to a vacant property: a drain line that has not been used for months behaves differently from one in daily use, and traps dry out. A camera tells you about the pipe regardless.
A camera inspection is added to the same appointment rather than booked separately, 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 North Branch.
Local information from Village of North Branch — fee schedule · Village of North Branch — village website and published documents · Village of North Branch — Board of Appeals bylaws · Village of North Branch — Master Plan 2018. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their North Branch 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, MIThis is one of the finest companies I have come across - that means serious customer service and professionalism. Justin was the inspector and he was very thorough yet very kind to answers all the questions that came in my mind during inspection. He took enough time, no rush, and a very detailed inspection was conducted. Extremely competitive pricing and timing from the company. 100% recommend to anyone looking for any kind of property inspection!!
Chirag R MiyaniMichiganWhat happens
Questions
The village’s fee schedule lists most permits not otherwise specified at ten dollars, and a right-of-way permit at fifty. The expensive items are meetings, not permits.
Whether it has to go before a board. A regular planning commission meeting is charged at $330 plus expenses, a special meeting or rezoning at $430 plus expenses, and every board of appeals meeting at $250.
Describe the change you intend and ask whether it needs planning commission or board of appeals review. That single answer moves both the cost and the timeline substantially.
Treat them as published rather than certain. The schedule carries several different approval dates and its own footer disagrees with them, so confirm current amounts with the village.
Yes — there is a fifty dollar restoration fee to turn the water back on. Arrange it before the inspection, because plumbing, fixtures and the water heater cannot be properly assessed with the supply off.
The village schedule gives after-hours service charges as $222 for up to two hours and $111 an hour thereafter.
We could not establish it from published sources — there is no building department page and no named inspector. Ask the village before planning work rather than assuming.
Yes, and here it comes up often — around 42% of the housing stock is not a detached house. Tell us what the building actually is so we can scope it and arrange access to units and common areas.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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From the blog
October 22, 2017
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Your local North Branch home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
