Missouri's Legislative Shamefulness

With JB’s post above, I hope all home inspectors in other states that are licensed understand why us inspectors here in Kansas and Missouri are so bitter about home inspection licensing. There have been dozens of fraud cases in the last few months, just around KC, about lenders and agents who transact hundreds of unlawful transactions, all to make money. The KAR, NAR, and several other groups want licensing to put a “leash” on us, so we do not find home defects, locate poor builder practices, and inform our clients, who pay us, about sub-par and defective homes. They do not want us to kill their deals. If a buyer, or an agent, finds (or makes) a defect even just a few days after our inspection, we are liable for the defect, because it was not on our report at the day of the inspection. If a buyer stops a deal because we found a major defect, the buyer walks, and the agent is out money; so he/she finds a defect after the inspection, and lawsuits will follow. Attorneys and insurance agents love it; that is why they are so heavily involved. The home inspection board in Kansas is worthless, as they are not fighting or questioning these tactics in any way.

I heard today that Senator Dennis Moore, a long-time senator from Kansas, is for this Cap and Trade bill. If it passes, Kansas home inspection laws will have to be re-written, or disolved entirely. The Cap and Trade would force all home sellers to get a pre-sale energy efficency inspection/audit on every home before it goes on the market. The KAR and the NAR should be focusing their efforts there, and not the home inspection laws. SB 329 needs to be changed, voted for in the January 2010 session, all to eleminate these useless laws in Kansas.

Lets leave ASHI inspectors out of this. Just because ASHI inspectors have very little access to affordable education, does not make them bad inspectors. I admire inspectors that belong to an association such as ASHI that has to deal with their handicap on a daily basis.

Cute,

Leave it to someone on this board to try and make it all about interNACHI versus ASHI don’t you association guys ever tire of flogging each other with wet noodles?

Since there are probably more independents in the country than those in the associations, maybe it’s the independents that should be looking at the fanatics in these associations as the handicapped ones.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike O’Handley, LHI
Your Inspector LLC.
Kenmore, WA

I partly agree with James Braun, lets leave ASHI out of this.

Just because in Kansas and Missouri when licensing came up a small select group of ASHI inspectors jumped in there, to assist the Realtors or legislator putting the unneeded and unwanted Bills together DOES NOT mean all of the ASHI inspectors were behind this BS.

One of the ploys I’ve seen out here is that when special interests start working to regulate and NEUTER home inspectors, the legislators **LOOK **to the OFFICIAL state home inspection association for guidance.

If there IS a state group - but its NOT controlled by **ONE **specific home inspection association / a small group of those inspectors form their OWN state home inspection association AND then they AND the realtors PUSH this group to the state legislators as the OFFICIAL state home inspection group that REPRESENTS all the state home inspectors, etc.

Then, although other groups may write letters, send emails, testify in hearings, etc - the OFFICIAL home inspection group is the ONLY group the legislators work with writing the laws, etc.

Then when the state HI Board is set up …

COOL ain’t it … A rose by any other name is …

Related Issue for Mr. Bushart and or Nick
I was viewing TAMHI’s web site and reviewed the post about the missouri bill on inspector licensing. Will it go into effect on 1/1/2010 or has it been tabled?

O’Handjob has never allowed the truth to interfere
with a point he wanted to make. Every couple of years I happen to stumble across his blog to read the three to four comments added since my last visit in search of something timely or relevant. Maybe someday…

Why bother responding? Has anyone ever seen Bushart admit he is wrong about anything? He is indeed a very Peckish person.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike O’Handley, LHI#202
Your Inspector LLC.
Kenmore, Washington

It is dead. The bill will be defeated each year if home inspectors in Missouri would join forces to protect the consumers and the inspectors from an unjust licensing. That is one of the main reasons TAMHI was formed. What happened in Kansas is, there were too few of the inspectors that actually fought off the bill. Each Missouri inspector needs to stay active with what is going on with home inspection licensure, or we will wind up like Kansas. Sad but true.
Licensing is like a snowball it will get bigger when it starts to roll. Keeping the heat on the snowball (and occasionally pissing on it) will keep the snowball melted.

The Kansas City, Kansas realtors who pushed the Kansas bill only have half of a victory.

Half of their market still lies in an area where there is no realtor and trial attorney sitting on a board governing home inspectors and this bothers them very much.

They are working hard to change that so that they have all of Kansas City. To do this, they must defeat our entire state.

Should we allow them to do this?

Do a search on this message board and you will find Bushart admitting he was wrong several times, just like most of the inspectors on this board has. He has even apologized when he was not really wrong. He admits when he is wrong, and that what makes him the great man that he is.

I have mentioned several vices about licensing on several threads here on this message board. I have voiced my opinions and truths on the recent “Washington HI licensing information from DOL” thread. I hope the home inspection board members here in Kansas, especially Mr. Barnes, who I hope is listening, take one last comment in consideration from me and the Washington state guys:

Kansas has a poplulation of 2,800,000
Washington state has a population of 6,550,000.

Washington state recently accepted only 332 applications for licensing.

Do the math. Expect not even 100 inspectors to license and register here. They expected over 1,400 to register in Washington state. It was not even close. Many counties in Washington state will not have any home inspectors; expect the same in Kansas.

To the board members of Kansas, where in the hel*lll are you going to get the funds to run this board and enforce these so called “rules, regulations, and laws”? Kansas has no money to give you. Home inspectors are failing and going out of business due to the economy.

Get real. There is no money. You will not be paid. There are no funds to even by pencils. Give it up. Go back to your cities, and start performing inspections again. Serve the consumers of Kansas; not your attorneys, KAR and special interest groups. Disban the board before your attorneys start accepting lawsuits, like they do in Texas, and try to take money from the insurance requirements that you set for us. You are not doing us home inspectors here any favors; you only favor your own and special interests. Start representing us and the home buyers of Kansas. Stop listening to the attorneys and the KAR. Get real.

Exactly…:wink:

Indeed, Patrick and Gary…

That is the initial effect, and it harms the consumer that those pushing the bill pretended to care about. Fewer home inspectors, fewer choices for consumers, higher fees.

But look ahead at the horizon and see the young men wanting to hang up their paper hats with golden arches painted on them…

The public will soon learn that the gold at the end of the rainbow for the unemployed and unhappy is only a course and a test away…

Now the consumers are harmed in another way…by the illusion that a licensed home inspector is qualified to inspect their house.

Soon the schools will form and then advertise…and then they churn out the highest number of licensed home inspectors the state has ever seen. Every three months, hundreds more enter the field waving their licenses that equates them to you and your experience.

The only difference between them and you, in the eyes of the public, will be their $79 inspection fees. Of course, they will start out low but after a few weeks they will be able to charge the premium rate…or at least that is what they learned from the recruiter that signed them up for classes…

You guys don’t get it. These BILL’s are not for us.

They’re to protect the children; to help protect the consumer and ensure they get a high quality inspection by a trained professional; for National Security to ensure we don’t have rapists, burglars, and dope dealers roaming around loose in peoples homes UNSUPERVISED; AND without these type of laws - as varied groups like out in Kansas the Realtors lobbyist (Luke Bell), the Trial Attorny’s Lobbyist and ASHI / KAREI home inspectors like the Kansas Chairman of the Home Inspectors Board (a Mr Jeff Barnes) have said time and time again - - Without these type of laws, and without prohibiting home inspectors from using “Weasel Clauses” that limit their-liability, and making it MANDANTORY that the home inspectors carry some fiscal responsibility (like E&O insurance, etc) / IF anything ever went wrong, the poor consumer has NO RECOURSE other than a refund of the inspectors FEE.

I was so DUMB that before I heard this thrown out to the legislators MULTIPLE times by the Pro-Licensing forces, I naively thought the consumers had the same recourse they do with UNLICENSED builders, contractors OR any other group - lawsuit, small claims court, etc.

APPARENTLY thats wrong BECAUSE the Pro-Licensing groups told the legislators time after time that WITHOUT licensing the consumers were SOL.

SO / Lets try to get it together and get our facts straight here:

Licensing is VITALLY needed because:

To protect the children; For National Security; To ensure the consumer gets a quality inspection by a trained professional who has set in a CLASSROOM for 80 hours (CE is OK done by correspondence, home study, over the Internet, etc) **BUT **entry level HI Training MUST be done in a PHYSICAL CLASSROOM approved by the Kansas Regents Board (the group that oversee’s the states Colleges, Community Colleges, Big Vo-Tech Schools, etc) according to the KHIRB (Kansas Home Inspection Review Board Chairman from Wichita (Jeff Barnes - ASHI / KAREI inspector)).

Mike Bushhart I thought was a pain in my *** UNTIL I really got to know him. The man is direct to the point and KNOWS exactly what he’s talking about. I grew to have lots of respect for him and soon realized he’s one of the greatest assets this organization has. Give him time. He loves to mess with you however in reality he’s a good friend to all and I for one wouldn’t have him any other way.

Do you not mean “Jim Bushart” :wink:

Dan: I did not realize that home builders, roofers, drywall installers, plumbers, painters, and all repair persons and contractors in Kansas or Missouri do not have to be licensed, insured, or registered to work on any home in these states. Most of these people who work on any private residence, often for days at a time, could be former rapists, dope dealers, burglars, child molesters, illegal aliens, etc.

I hope the Senators of states realize this when they have their roofs replaced or any other home repair. I wonder if these lawmakers are living in safe, well constructed residences.

Educational requirements for newbies in Kansas will be taught by teachers who have never performed an inspection. So, they will teach what ever is on the test, so they will pass it. They do the same in any school. Teach, pass the test. Onward…

Gary -

Worse than that, I just found out that home buyers AND sellers are NOT licensed, required to carry E&O insurance, etc. AND there is NO background check on them - WE could be walking into buildings with convicted dope dealers, sex addicts, drunks, etc. REAL SCARY for us OLDER folks.