Sorry Jim, you don’t know what you are talking about. The WDO issue was handled in the original law that passed. It makes it easier for home inspectors. Now they are able to point out conducive conditions and wood rot without an SPI license. They cannot however, point out with specificity types of termites, beetles or ants. They must refer to a licensed SPI or PCO just like they refer to an elecrician or plumber. (PS. the SPI license NEVER required E&O. There were other readily available methods to meet the required financial guarantee)
The mold issue is a NEW LAW that has been proposed. It has not even had its first hearing yet. It will not even have a chance once it gets to that point. Neither the pro-license or con-license inspectors in this state like this new law.
I stand corrected. I thought this thread was about the SOP for home inspectors, as written by the licensing board.
The Kansas law did not provide the board with the power to write…but only to approve one of the existing national SOPs for their use. They are writing one, anyway. I thought the Washington board had granted themselves the same autonomy.
Sorry. My bad.
I stand behind my statement, though, that those behind adding this to the SOP are motivated by the desire to restrict their competition.
Sane minds prevailed. Apparently two mold advocates -[FONT=Arial]Teresa McCormick and [/FONT]**Sharon L. Pawlak were pushing the Washington lawmakers to mandate mold inspections. Its my understanding that the Home Inspectors Advisory Board and WHLAG started to build support to drop it and the lawmaker did.
Here we go again. Seems there is a new proposed law that would eliminate the Home Inspector’s Board along with all the other Board’s in the State due to budgetary conditions. HB 2151 page 109.
Well isn’t that special. Seems our initial license fee of $682 was based on the Home Inspector licensing being self sustaining. Well if we are paying that much and they get rid of the Board, how low will the license fee be? And that means the Director of the DOL will be the person in charge of approving education, licensing, qualifications, fines and everything else. Someone who has absolutely no knowledge about the Home Inspection industry.
So this is our chance to have this home inspection legislation reversed before it takes effect.
The hearing is tomorrow Feb. 13th at 1:30pm
State Government & Tribal Affairs - 2/13/2009 1:30 p.m.
House Full Committee
House Hearing Rm D
John L. O’Brien Building*
If you are new to the profession since June 12, 2008, you will not be eligible to apply for your license until you meet all instruction and training requirements, plus take and pass an approved home inspector’s exam with a Washington State component.
If, as of June 12, 2008, you had been actively performing inspections, but did not have at least two years of experience and had not yet completed at least 100 home inspections, you will not be eligible to apply for your license before September 1, 2009 and you will have to meet all instruction and training requirements, plus take and pass an approved home inspector’s exam with a Washington State component and become licensed prior to July 1, 2010.
If, as of June 12, 2008, you had been actively performing inspections for at least two years and had completed at least 100 home inspections, you will not have to meet the instruction and training requirements of the law, but you will have to take and pass an approved home inspector’s exam with a Washington State component and apply for licensure before September 1, 2009.
Does anyone know if Home Inspector Franchisers are “approved” to school their own franchisees?? If so, I think there needs to be some kind of check and balance. I know first hand of one (at least back in 2004) who just showed their franchisees a weeks of power point slides, open book tests, and two walk through inspection on NEW houses,… and send them off into the field. Scary… They only care about building their inspector base to collect franchise fee’s… what say you?
lets clear the air on this issue. A legislator not the insp board proposed legislation to add mold to the inspection criteria with SB5644. it had one hearing and no action after 12 Feb. It must clear the Senate committee by close of buisness Fri or it is dead. so far there does not appear to be any movement on it.
another issue relating to the cost of the license in our state. a bill is in process that would eliminate the insp. board, not sure what would happen then and who would develop the rules and procedures …that bill HB2151 is still in process but is most likly dead for this session. Please try to find out the true info on these issues and then contact your represenatives and let thme know how you feel.
Any franchise that hopes to train their own employees has to go through all the same process as the schools. They have to setup approved courses. The courses have to meet these standards.
I know one franchise is thinking about going through the steps. In most cases their existing programs would require some obvious changes. At BTC we have been teaching this class about 15 years and we will have to make a few changes too to meet the education requirements.
You are correct. The board had nothing to do with introducing that bill. Board members were all against it. I know that for sure because we talked about it. That came, when it came, as a surprise.
As to elimination of boards, that is not just the HI board. Government right now in the state is looking at phasing out all boards. They are wrangling over it. From what I saw, this board would be around until at least 2010. We may know more soon but, as you know, government is not always fast or easy to predict.
Steven, I find this quote to be somewhat confusing and I’ve heard isn’t accurate:
“If, as of June 12, 2008, you had been actively performing inspections, but did not have at least two years of experience and had not yet completed at least 100 home inspections, you will not be eligible to apply for your license before September 1, 2009 and you will have to meet all instruction and training requirements, plus take and pass an approved home inspector’s exam with a Washington State component and become licensed prior to July 1, 2010.”
I take it to mean that if an inspector has done inspections prior to June 12, 2008 but hasn’t met the requirements of the grandfather clause, that he wouldn’t need to meet the requirements until July 1, 2010. Am I reading that wrong? What’s the significance of July 1, 2010?
I read it like you do. That language there is from the original law passed by the legislature. The licensing board was not involved in any of that. Now, as for July 1 of the next year, I am not certain. I believe that, generally, in this state laws kick in in July. I believe that I remember that from when they were working on this law years back. However, in this case they changed the dates. That is what I think. The good news is that this does give people some time to get their ducks in a row. It does not just shut businesses down on the spot, inspectors have time to comply.
You will need to check with Rhonda Myers. According to her, that is not the interpretation of the DOL. Sept 1, 2009 is the “drop dead date”.
If you do not meet the grandfather requirements, but have an existing business, you have until that date to get your education, field training, and test completed or you will have to shut down. That is a little over 6 months to comply.
She also stated that since there are currently no “licensed inspectors” to do the field training, they will accept “experienced inspectors”, those that meet all the other requirements but due to the licensing not taking place until July 1 of this year, do no have a license. It is 40 hours to include at least 5 inspections with the Date, Property Address, Report and Inspectors name and qualifications that must be supplied to the DOL.
Failure to meet the requirements by Sept 1, 2009 will require you to shut down the business.
I just spoke with her again (2:30pm), to verify what I had told Kevin after speaking to her yesterday.