Thank you, sir
That is a first, guess I am just use to you disagreeing with everyone:shock:
Sets a minimum standard: this is one of the first complaints of home inspectors, that the standard is insignificant. Regardless of how minimum the minimum standards are, it does set what is and what is not required of a home inspector. A large portion of complaints against home inspectors concerning things that are not really in the scope of home inspection. Without having to make sure everything is in and properly interpreted in your home inspection agreement and covered in your inspection report, this provides someone (a third-party) to mediate these types of complaints.
Home inspector representation: when they first try to set up a home inspection board in Tennessee it consisted of real estate agents and contractors (no home inspectors). Someone paying very close attention to this filed a complaint and the general contractor slots where filled by home inspectors. This is what is important to monitor and address when the state initiates home inspection regulations.
Legal assistance: when a client makes a complaint of wrongdoing by the home inspector the first course of action is to file a lawsuit. In my state there is a legal counsel assigned specifically for home inspection. This gives you (the home inspector) a means of killing an initial complaint by giving your client the ability to file a complaint with the home inspector board which will be reviewed. The home inspector is required to provide all documentation and answer the complaint within 30 days. Just like in your home inspection agreement, requiring the client to seek out third-party arbitration before filing a lawsuit, you can require that they first file a complaint with the home inspection board before proceeding.
A place for home inspectors to make complaints: as a home inspector you come across a lot of shady characters who do not properly follow the rules. This is your access to the governing body of the industry. Who else would you call, a cop?
Home inspection licensing requirements: it ensures that you are acting like a real business. It ensures that you have insurance. It ensures that you make some attempt (regardless how feeble it may seem) to keep up with continuing education throughout your career.
Home inspection board overreach: like any government process, red tape and excessive regulation will creep in if allowed. All this takes is a frivolous complaint by someone who has a connection to a political entity that slides in inappropriate changes to the rules. The state of Texas and Florida are examples of excessive overreach and regulations pushed by outside agencies, primarily real estate.
My personal experience: I started doing home inspections long before there was home inspection licensing in this state. I came from the construction industry and began inspections at the request of a real estate agent broker (just like all the other inspectors in the state who are general contractors). I adopted the ASHI standards of practice (which was about all that was available at the time, real estate agents didn’t even have computers then.) I received my first and only legal complaint which was a frivolous complaint against real estate, pest control and myself. During litigation the state of Tennessee adopted the home inspection licensing which adopted the exact ASHI standards (date and version) which I adopted. My case immediately went from this guy is making this stuff up against my client to OG the state requires this also. The case never made it into the courtroom.
So for those of you that want to sit there and argue over the inconvenience of licensing saying that it serves no useful purpose, it did for me, on day one. If nothing else, it spelled out the ground-level requirements of a home inspection.
Continuing Education:My reason for sticking with NACHI all these years was that the state does not accept all “continuing education”. I spent tens of thousands of dollars in related training not accepted by the state but every two years could sit down and knock out 60 hours worth of continuing education through NACHI. It is also an association that has credibility in the industry that also set standards as well as lobbying power for the home inspector.
You see a lot of really stupid questions on this board every day. The answer to those questions can be found in the home inspection rules where available. This stops people from making up crap as they go along (which they do anyway). So even if it’s a pain in the butt, licensing is a necessary evil in any industry. Not that I would ever initiate government control on my life and others. It has its place. The reason for most licensing requirements is the results of cowboy home inspectors running rogue. When you go too far, someone’s going to stop you and everyone else in the process. We have discussions every day about things that should or should not be reported or referred to someone else. If you read closely in a home inspection law is specifically tells you what you are and are not to report, though it is often very broad and easily misinterpreted by the inspector.
I’m in a licensed state. I inspect in an adjacent state that has no licensing.
Licensing may add a faux level of credibility but that’s all.
YMMV
Licensing only matters for the first year it is adopted. Inspectors get so proud that some state agency sent them a license with their name on it that they go nuts. There is this guy on FB named Marc LeBlanc or something. He got so excited to get his license that he literally drove to the licensing board, took a PIC of himself next to the new home inspector licensing board seal on the board’s podium, and uses that image as his homepage.
But after a year, something happens: ALL of your competitors ALL have licenses. Having a license is much like having a nose in that every inspector has one. They all have licenses and noses. And so it becomes meaningless mostly.
Yes licensing is meaningless because of the quality and the length of the education required to get a license. In Okla one can get a driver license at age 16 and all you must do is take a written and a short driving test takes about 1 hour. Dam sure don’t make you a good driver.
Education, Education and some more Education along with a bunch of OJT to be a professional home inspector. A week in your HOH does not meet the required education.
Absolutely NOT meaningless. It does one thing very well. It subliminally tells every person searching for a home inspector that EVERY home inspector is EQUAL in the eyes of the State! They all have a license, therefore they are all qualified to inspect a home, from the same-day-just-got-a-license inspector, to the 30 year veteran inspector. All equal!
So what’s left? Price!!
As an apprentice member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters in southern CA, I went to school one night a week for 2 hours per class for 4 years, and during that time, my pay scale advanced as I progressed through the 8 different levels of apprenticeship.
That’s to be a carpenter, and to qualify for a Journeyman’s card. I knew guys who had been carpenters for 4 years or more and who avoided the schoolwork by buying their Journeyman’s card. Pretty much without exception, as carpenters they didn’t have a wide range of skills.
If we had a program for home inspectors similar to the union program, we’d be able to produce some really good inspectors, and consistently.
Did you forget that we also run a small business?
Union is not the answer.
He said education** like** a Union he did not say we should be a union!!! his thinking is on the right track
And just how could tat ever work? think man
Typical leftist thinking.:roll:
Why does every thing have to be political with you I am a registered Republican that voted for Trump. So what is your F**** problem:shock:
Why does every thing have to be political with you I am a registered Republican that voted for Trump. So what is your F**** problem:shock:
Politics affects your life every day.
I know your a Trump supporter but that changes nothing.
Sure it does but I am not consumed with it, I have a very good life inspite of it.
Kenton asked for an opinion and I gave mine;-)
As did I.
I couldn’t agree more.
The one thing I would add is that licensing in my state has some components to protecting home inspectors. Which is why I favor licensing.
Kenton …
I’ve carried licenses in 4 states AND done inspections in 3 states without licensing. I’ve noticed no difference in the knowledge, training, experience or quality of LICENSED versus UNLICENSED inspectors.
Using my own experience and Kansas as an EXAMPLE …
At various times over the past 20 years, both my sister-in-law and a niece have been President of the largest Board of Realtors in Kansas. My brother has been President of the Kansas Realtors MLS system, and at different times I have been the training director and President for both of the 2 national home inspection association chapters in Kansas. I have been on the national Board of Directors of the oldest home inspection association (ASHI) twice and served as our local InterNACHI chapter President (member of InterNACHI 15 yrs).
**One of my degrees is in real estate **and I was a supervising real estate broker in 3 states for 10 years and have about 10x more education in real estate than most Kansas RE agents do (30 hrs for their license). My real estate training along with my family’s involvement in real estate leadership in Kansas gives me access to facts and information most home inspectors or real estate agents don’t have. I’d like to share some of that with you.
#1 - In about 2000 or 2001 the national association of realtors set long range legislative goals for themselves. One of those goals was getting home inspectors licensed or regulated in EVERY state. Their attorneys felt that if inspectors were licensed and something went wrong in a transaction, the agents were less likely to be brought into a lawsuit (“Oh gosh, the state gave him/her a license how was I to know they weren’t competent”). If they could also get mandatory errors insurance pushed onto inspectors by law, if something did go wrong the realtors could shift liability off themselves, sellers and contractors and onto someone easier to attack …. home inspectors. **In brief licensing home inspectors is NOT an individual STATE thing … It’s a national goal for Realtors / SHIFT LIABILITY.
**
#2 - Even if you have a huge membership and put a lot of votes and lots of $$$ into legislators campaigns, even the Realtors can’t just waltz in and say “WE’d like to regulate OR get some control of another profession”, so you gotta have a story … a good story. For Realtors that story is finding a few inspections that had problems, then using the excuse that they want ANOTHER profession regulated and controlled to help PROTECT the public.
#3 - If the commissioned sales people really wanted to protect the public you wonder WHY you have NEVER seen them push for mandatory state wide building codes for builders, remodelers, flippers (in Kansas only 20 counties have this); or how about state wide licensing of tradesmen like plumbers, electricians, roofers, HVAC techs, etc … the people that build, remodel or rehab houses or buildings.
I’ve NEVER seen this anywhere I’ve lived … have you.
Dan, I could not have said it better.
Dan every State in the union will have licensed home inspectors before its done.
Instead of trying to swim upstream in the mighty Mississippi why not put your efforts toward increasing the education requirements for a License to ensure that we have serious applicants. Take a look around and see the amount of new inspectors that were in business just two years ago and have already dropped out.
They were not serious!!!