First of all, I believe it’s prudent to pick one’s battles and not expend energy and resources on battles that one has little likelihood of winning.
With this in mind, at this stage of the game, I believe that it’s foolish to fight the concept of licensing for home inspectors, especially here in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is now surrounded by states on three sides that either now have licensing in place or are in the process of implementing it (New York, Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia). I believe that licensing of home inspectors in PA is inevitable, and quite frankly I would prefer it to the half baked regulation that is now in place, i.e. a regulation without an oversight body.
I suppose most of you realize that HB 1805 just didn’t come out of the blue recently. Senate Bill 1364 was introduced in 2006, and then became SB 359 in 2007. This house bill is just a slight variation and evolution of the senate bills. The senate bills, as well as this house bill, seem to have a sizable number of co-sponsors and the bills seem to have momentum.
Again, I think that it’s foolish to fight passage of the entire bill. We perhaps could make some slight adjustments, however, if we pick the items most important to us and present our case intelligently.
Last January, some us (Joe Hagarty, Nick G., Dan Keogh, Kim Gore, Joe Ferry, Ron Bruno and myself), met with Senator Greenleaf, sponsor of SB 1364 and SB 359, to express some of our concerns regarding SB 1364. Initially, on the surface it appeared that the Senator was listening and perhaps he was.
When SB 359 came out, however, in March 2007 with no substantial change, I began my own letter and e-mail campaign to all of the Senators on the Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure committee. Following are most of the primary concerns that I expressed with SB 359 and which continue to be my primary concerns with the present bill, HB 1805.
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Originally, one of my major focuses was the make-up of the oversight board. Among other things, I felt that there were too few members on the board which could potentially make it easy for a small coalition to dominate. I recommended that the number of the members on the board be increased from 7 to 11 (6 inspectors and 4 consumer members). I was happy to see that the number was increased to 9 in HB 1805. At least they met me half way. I would still like to see, however, that a provision be put in so that there would be fairly equal representation on the board from all of the National Home Inspector Associations. I feel that this is especially important since there is a requirement for an inspector to be a member of a national home inspector association.
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Actually, I would like to see the requirement for membership in a national association be eliminated. I believe that membership in a trade/professional/educational association should be a professional choice, not government mandated. (Although I think it would be professionally foolish not to belong to one or more of the national associations).
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I think that the requirement for 120 hours of formal instruction is somewhat excessive. Maryland is only requiring 48 hours (I know, I’m taking the course). On the other hand, I believe New York requires 140, so maybe 120 hours isn’t so bad. Ideally, I would like to see some consideration given for past, relevant experience, but I know that is a difficult thing to quantify.
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Finally, I would like to see the requirements for existing inspectors (“grandfathering”) be tweaked (admittedly, this is somewhat self serving). Given that Pennsylvania already has a HI regulation in place, I believe that having to be in active, continuous practice for at least 5 years in order to be exempt from the schooling and testing requirements, is excessive. I think that some combination of some schooling and some years in practice should be accepted, for example, say 48 hours or so of schooling and 3 years of practice. I believe that when New York in instituted licensing they did something like that. See following from New York:
"II. Grandfathering Clause – Grandparenting Expires on 12/31/06*
[FONT=Arial]Method 1. • Competent proof** that you performed 100 or more home inspections for compensation within 2 years prior to the effective date of this law
• Have successfully completed high school or its equivalent
• Have passed the NYS written examination, or have taken and passed an existing nationally recognized examination, deemed equivalent, prior to December 31, 2005.
• Freedom from Disqualifying Criminal Convictions.
• Application Fee: Each application must be accompanied by a nonrefundable application fee of $250; the license will be effective for 2 years.[/FONT]
Method 2. • Competent proof that you performed 250 or more home inspections[FONT=Arial] for compensation within 3 years prior to the effective date of this law.**
• Have successfully completed high school or its equivalent
• Waived from the examination
• Freedom from Disqualifying Criminal Convictions
•** Application Fee:** Each application must be accompanied by a nonrefundable application fee of $250; the license will be effective for 2 years.
** The guidelines with respect to the nature of the proof will be set forth at a later date[/FONT]
Method 3. Education and experience equivalent to either Method 1 or Method 2 of the above.
• Freedom from Disqualifying Criminal Convictions
[FONT=Arial]Application Fee: Each application must be accompanied by a nonrefundable application fee of $250; the license will be effective for 2 years."[/FONT]
I believe that the way New York did it was fairly reasonable.
Anyway, that briefly sums up my main concerns with HB 1805. Granted, few of us like to be regulated and very few of us like to be shelling out more money for licensure fees, but quite frankly, I believe that it’s inevitable at this stage. Overall, HB 1805 is fairly palatable and with a little tweaking, I can live with it.