I agree with Tony2Toes. I have a cousin who is a contractor--he specializes in restoring old homes. Since I tend to like older homes, he comes along when I make a second visit to a house I'm interested in, and he comes along for the inspection. While he is a very good carpenter and can tell me pretty quickly if things like a slanting floor are going to be trouble or not, he's not an expert on heating systems or electricity or plumbing, even though he knows something about them. However, he can interpret "inspector-speak" for me, if the inspector starts spouting all kinds of jargon. And two sets of reasonably experienced eyes are better than one. My cousin has pointed out areas of potential concern to the inspector, and vice versa. (In one 1860-era house, the two of them had a grand old time tracing some long unused pipes to a capped off well in the basement. I had to remind them what they were there for, and tracing the mystery pipes for half an hour wasn't it.) But I highly doubt a seller is going to give as much weight to "My father/brother/cousin says the roof needs to be replaced now," as they would to a licensed inspector saying the exact same thing. And that's why you need the professional inspector.

You realized that the inspector didn't move furniture & so forth, so it sounds like he had no way of detecting the problem. You won a lawsuit against the sellers, which sounds like the court was convinced that *they* are the responsible party, that they failed to disclose a fault that they knew about, or maybe that they covered it up deliberately. Since you've been compensated for any loss (is California like Texas? a buyer can recover treble damages against the sellers if the sellers have failed to disclose or have covered up a problem? if so, you've been compensated to the tune of about twice the amount of the loss, figuring a third went to legal fees), why do you want to sue the inspector (which sounds like greed) or get his license revoked (which sounds like either revenge or a threat: pay up or suffer the consequences)? & why are you asking on an internet forum rather than consulting the attorney who got you the award from the sellers? I'm surprised to hear that what you paid for a home inspection won't even replace a window; inspections here are far more expensive... or maybe windows are cheaper.

Based on my own experience, I would say that unless there is something uniquely compelling to you about this house, I would walk away. I think it is a fair bet that the money you spend on the repairs will not translate into commensurate equity. In other words, if you spend X on the house and Y on the repairs, when you are done, you will NOT have a house that you could sell for (X + Y). You'd be better served buying a house worth (X + Y) that needs no repairs. Also, keep in mind that any estimates you get from inspectors, structural engineers, or whomever, are just that -- estimates -- NOT contracts to actually do the work. When we bought our home, we had a long list of defects and remediation estimates from our inspection. The actual cost of fixing these defects turned out to be at least 3-4 times the inspector's estimates. And that doesn't even count all the things that the inspector did not find. We love our old house, but financially it has been a disaster. In hindsight, I wish we had walked away when we got the inspector's report (which was not even as bad as yours.)

The LFD22860SW is the white one you should get since it will fit your space and be a french door model. The model you like, the LCF21760 only comes in Stainless and is a counter depth model that is too wide. If it was counter depth and less wide to it would be comfortable for my short arms, I would have chosen the one you like also since I like the look of nothing on the door. The model I got is very nice and I think you would love it in the white color and after getting the water hooked up start to like to have great tasting filtered water on the door and filtered ice in the freezer and learn to live with the look of something on the door so you have a refrigerator that fits.