Originally Posted By: jbushart
This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
. Home inspectors were making quite a bit of money and the building inspectors looked upon this new market with envy.
"I'd like to have that kind of steady work too" they said to each other "but at our higher commercial prices." So they set out to do exactly that.
First, they opened the doors to their association to some of the home inspectors who were able to pass an entrance exam that they created. The small group of home inspectors who joined the association formed by the building inspectors considered themselves to be
credentialed as well, striclty by association. Then, with this small number of home inspectors on board, they pretended to be a
home inspector association instead of a
building inspector association.
Now, since many of them were technical in their backgrounds, they needed to invent the concept that ALL of their "fellow home inspectors" needed to have the same background so that they could all tap into this new market at the commercially higher rate. They spread out to various message boards, preaching the need to become proficient at knowing the various national and international building codes in order to accomplish a basic home inspection. They tallied the number of years that their average member had been in business and preached that, in order to do a basic home inspection, an inspector must match that level of experience. Aside from their own members and a handful of followers, not too many other people bought into their plan.
"I have an idea," said one. "Let's pretend that this is all in the interest of the consumer's welfare instead of our own greed." He discussed it with the others and soon they were all on board. "In the interest of the consumer, these measures need to be made the standard and to do so, they need to become law." And thus, it became a chartered standard that all members of this association were required to support the need for a law.
Meanwhile, consumers continued to choose the home inspectors who charged reasonable fees instead of the building inspectors. This infuriated some of them.
"What shall we do? The government refuses to believe that the consumer needs to have our standards set as the minimum acceptable?"
Soon, they decided to select another home inspector association called ASHI and began to incorporate those standards into their own association.
"Now, no one will be able to tell the difference. Maybe now we will look more like home inspectors and be able to fool the legislators into thinking that our ideas represent those of home inspectors in Florida."
And so they continued into the next legislative section...their thirteenth try in as many years.
To be continued...
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Home Inspection Services of Missouri
www.missourihomeinspection.com
"We're NACHI. Get over it."
www.monachi.org