COE catch 22.

Requiring members to disclose something… legitimatizes it.

So if you create a Code of Ethics that requires inspectors to disclose compensation and consideration they receive when they release their client’s information to a third party, you in essence grant permission for inspectors to sell defect data to repair contractors, provided they make a disclosure.

I don’t fault members who on one hand complain that parts of our COE permit members to release client information to third parties under certain conditions while at the same time complaining that we don’t require the disclosure of the compensation or consideration received for doing so. You can only really discover this catch 22 by trying to get out of it. This is why I have recently encouraged members and groups of members to author their own Dream Code of Ethics. Such and exercise would help some members realize just how difficult it is for a COE to protect every consumer from everything.

Nick acted in a despotic manner when HE and Thornberry crafted the changes to the COE

His calls for individuals to submit their “dream” COE is yet another diversion and smoke screen to take the focus off of Nick and Thornberry.
**
Changes to the COE should only be done after long deliberation by the member committee charged with that task.**

Nick would have you believe he alone has “improved” the COE.

BUNK

And here is a totally different issue to think about. Try this little exercise: Imagine you are driving a car and come upon an intersection where you see a sign that says “No Left Turn.” Now ask yourself… what does that prohibition say about right turns? Without specifically saying that right turns are permitted, a sign that prohibits left turns… legitimizes right turns. My point here is that changes to our COE have to be made carefully and slightly.

And by a despotic authority to benefit of a particular vendor.

Imagine that!

I chair that committee. We spent many months and hundreds of hours on it.

you are the committee. :frowning:

No, that’s my point, in the end we didn’t do it.

Who is WE?

InterNACHI.

The purpose of a code of ethics is NOT to protect a consumer.

The purpose of a code of ethics is to protect the profession from those within a profession who could tarnish the reputation of the profession (and of others within the profession) through unethical conduct.

Your latest revision officially endorses the practice of selling client personal data to third parties and officially endorses the (illegal, in many states) practice of concealing an inspector’s compensation (in cash, discounts, products, services) from the client in doing so.

NACHI members who are not selling client contact information to roofer, plumbers, alarm systems contractors, insulation installers, etc … can be mistakenly assumed to be guilty by association with those who are.

The Client Fidelity Pledge is the means for inspectors who do not engage in this illegal and unethical (for everyone other than NACHI) behavior to promote and to set themselves apart from those who do.

As in ALL Staff?

Names please.

Or you standing inside a circle of mirrors?

Luckily for me, inspectors are in the reading and writing business and so can see for themselves that it does the opposite. Read I. 7. a. and b. and I. 10. of: www.nachi.org/code_of_ethics.htm

InterNACHI’s COE prohibits the release of any client information except under certain conditions and prohibits it altogether when doing so is illegal.

You are free to try to convince them that they aren’t reading what is written.

We consider arguments proffered by staff as well.

So are refusing to name the committee members?

I see and so does everyone else.

Rule #7 says what it says.

I can be in full compliance by simply reporting that the attic is under insulated and ask my client if he would like to be contacted by an insulation contractor. When he buys the insulation that I recommended in my report, I can receive my $100 kickback without him even knowing about it. All of this is in full compliance with your new revision.

Just like Thornberry and John Leach shell out their $200 kickbacks when the home owner gave the same permission to someone contacting them about an alarm system that addresses the reported lack of CO detectors and non-operating smoke detectors … or just like the roofer who pays $100 kickback when the home owner gave the same permission to someone contacting them about the stains reported in the attic.

You wrote it, Nick.

Your original version included full disclosure of compensation and consideration which you omitted after a representative of the alarm systems contractors objected to it. Remember?

Now that bears repeating over and over and over.

Read post #1 again Jim. Currently the issue of receiving compensation or consideration from a repair contractor who has an interest in influencing report writing is not specifically addressed in our COE, and as I’ve stated many times, this is an upcoming issue we’ll likely have to deal with.

If we followed your and Joe’s suggestion and required disclosure of compensation and consideration, we would inadvertently legitimized the practice of repair contractors paying bounties to inspectors for deeming roofs to be in need of replacement. Remember… unlike repair contractors, alarm salesmen and used car salesmen have no financial interest in influencing the objectiveness of our industry’s reports as alarms and cars are not part of our industry’s SOP.

Again (from the first sentence of the first post of this thread): Requiring members to disclose something… legitimatizes it. Your well-intended requirement would have inadvertently thrown InterNACHI’s COE into a perpetual catch 22.

I don’t want to infer that it is a closed door discussion. The Lord knows I’m on this message board 24/7 batting around every issue any member wishes to raise. My cell phone is published on this site. I personally answer many hundreds of emails a day. I’ve personally appeared in front of and met many thousands of members.

However, ultimately, InterNACHI’s B.O.D. has to agree and our Legal Department has to approve. I guess Mark has the most control over everything because if we can’t convince him to sign off on something, it dies. In that sense, he has the greatest concentration of power because he technically holds veto rights.

It is an “upcoming issue” that you created by your public endorsement of the practice of selling client data to contractors, using the inspection agreement as a tool to waive the home buyer’s rights to certain privacy restrictions, and for inspectors to receive compensation/consideration in various forms in exchange for the client data … which is something that even the inspectors who do it would have preferred to keep under wraps, IMO.

As we have discussed privately, this is your show. You, Chris and Thornberry have set the course. You will probably have a few who will follow you in the course you have set … but not many, IMO.

Good luck.