Home inspectors caught in Catch-22
Required licenses aren’t available
BY JIM ASH • FLORIDA TODAY • September 30, 2009
Already suffering from a grinding recession, Florida’s 3,000 home inspectors, and a growing legion of mold inspectors, face a Catch-22 next summer when they are required for the first time to obtain a state license.
The Legislature set the July 1, 2010, deadline two years ago without appropriating any money for the massive new program. Today, even if a home inspector can prove he has 250 hours of training and is willing to undergo a background check and pay the maximum $200 license fee set by law, there are no licenses available and no regulations to follow.
Home inspectors, mold “remediation” specialists and licensed contractors poured out their frustration Tuesday in the first of several workshops sponsored by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
“We have eight months until July 1, 2010,” said Harold Weise, a [business owner
http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/mag-glass_10x10.gif](http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20090930/BUSINESS/909300312/1006/NEWS01/Home+inspectors+caught+in+Catch-22#) from Pensacola who estimates that he has performed more than 2,000 home inspections over the past 14 years. “There’s been two years and four months lost.”
Matilde Miller, the department’s legislative coordinator, said there is little regulators could do.
“We couldn’t begin to do anything with rules or an exam because of the appropriations challenge,” she said. “Our key goals are to assure the public safety and not to put anyone out of business.”
Meanwhile, the department will plow ahead with a series of rule-making workshops around the state. Miller predicted that the Legislature will come up with a fix in the regular session that begins in March, although no bill has been filed.
The Department of Business and Professional Regulation will ask for more money and more regulators to implement the program when it files its official budget request for next year, said spokeswoman Alexis Antonacci Lambert.
Lawmakers promised a grandfathering clause for existing home inspectors that would allow them to gradually come into compliance, but the language was taken out by the time Gov. Charlie Crist signed the bill into law in June 2007.
Building contractors continued Tuesday to square off against home inspectors over minimal standards. Home inspectors, they argued, should have the same 8,000 hours of training as them.
Larry Cerro, a home inspector from Tallahassee, argued that applicants should have on-the-job training with at least 250 inspections.
“Right now, the way the law is written, a person could become a licensed home inspector without ever having inspected a home,” he said.
Chris Paterna, a home inspector from Tallahassee, argued just as passionately that contractors have a built-in conflict of interest when they perform home inspections and offer to fix the flaws they uncover.
“Are you going to hire me to do the re-inspection if I am the contractor?” Paterna said. “What do you think I’m going to tell you about my work?”