Michigan Bill 6088

[Nick Gromicko]

I should be fair...

While I'm picking on "cake walk" exams like the NHIE I should also point out that exams that are too difficult harm consumers as well by allowing a greater percentage of incompetent wild guessers to pass by freak chance.

Read www.nachi.org/examsthatharm.htm

Anyway... a good exam has to be just right to have any meaning.

[James E. Braun, CMI]

Originally Posted by mbazzo

Vince,

I'm not sold on licensing at all. the point is if we, as home inspectors in Michigan are going to be required to be licensed, INACHI should be stepping forward and following through with Rep Accavitti to ensure our requirements as an association are equaled to or exceed the nhie standard mentioned in the current version of the bill. as it stands right now, that's open to interpretation by a board that has yet to be set up. JB makes a very good point that the most probable board members will be ASHI. MichAHI is seeing to it.

I totally agree.
Nick, can you contact Rep Accevitti and ask him why? Why NHIE instead of our exam? Like you said it is superior. I feel that NACHI , the nation's largest home inspection organization, should be setting the testing standards; not an organization that has no interst in protecting the consumer.

[Nick Gromicko]

2 reasons why:

First, The NHIE is not a private trade association... it is an exam. The states do not want association membership to be required... and neither do I. That is why there is no mention of ASHI and won't ever be. There exists only 2 states left (AL and PA) where membership in InterNACHI is required by the state. I've been fighting those 2 states for years to drop their association requirement. PA is about to. If the states used our exam like New York did, they'd have to mention InterNACHI. The states all want to be association-neutral.

Second, The NHIE is a MINIMUM standard "everyone passes" exam. The states want EVERYONE IN and licensed. So even though we have much better exams in place www.nachi.org/aboutexam.htm and www.nachi.org/cmi.htm, the states don't want harder exams, the states want easier exams. Furthermore... SO DO THE INSPECTORS! I could easily insist that the state include on of InterNACHI's or CMI's harder exams...but given a choice to pay $225 to take an easy exam (like NHIE) for licensing... or... pay $225 to take a hard exam for licensing.... what idiot is going to risk $225 on a harder exam? You?

The state wants everyone in... that's why licensing nearly triples the number of licensed competitors you have... almost overnight.

[LYLE R. HAYDEN]

I am firmly opposed to licensing in the state of Michigan. Yes, ASHI is behind the attempt to implement the requirements (I have received literature on it). Licensing (sp?) does not a great HI make. Instead much like any hoop you jump through it can discourage self-regulation of the industry. Instead, the state may require without notification, validity, and substantize arguement the change or removal of those very licensing requirements they created to improve the industry. Have you ever been to Michigan's DMV. Or sat in a board of Education meeting. Politicians (and I am not a basher) can NEVER do the work that Nick and members of this organization can do which is help educate and regulate its members with self policing. If Congress and the State legislature can self-regulate why can't the HI industry?

[James H. Bushart]

You see the NHIE mentioned in licensing bills because the NHIE has its people in the shadows pushing the licensing bills. They need licensing laws to make their test relevant. Without a state mandating it (or ASHI mandating it) no one takes it.

Thus, to fight the NHIE is also to fight licensing. They are part of the dark and dirty "coalitions" made up of ASHI members and their favored vendors who are working with the state real estate associations to pass laws that mandate attendance in their classes.

Let's repeal these laws where they exist and fight them where ever they are being threatened.

[Michael Bazzo, CMI]

Originally Posted by gromicko

We've met many times with Rep. Accavitti and he has spoken at our chapter meetings. Rep Accavitti has been nothing but very helpful and has assured us many times that licensing in Michigan will be InterNACHI-friendly. This Bill is very InterNACHI-friendly and assocition neutral.

This quote from Representative Accavitti, the sponsor of the Bill:

Update: The following came from a recent article dated Sunday August 29th, 2004 and quotes State Representative Frank Accavitti.

Inspect the inspectors

Lawmakers introduce bills requiring home inspectors to receive training, be licensed

By DOUG HENZE
Of The Daily Oakland Press

"While Accavitti says the three major home inspector trade groups-the American Society of Home Inspectors, the National Association of Home Inspectors, and the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors - have signed off on the licensing bill, some local inspectors say they hate the idea." "Im dead set against it," said Mel Jacobs, Great Lakes Chapter president of ASHI...

"Accavitti, who already has drafted a substitute bill to address the concerns inspectors have brought to him, said ASHI has tried to establish its test as the state's. "That's not going to happen in the state of Michigan," he said, explaining that the law won't be designed to give any organization an advantage."

Accavitti has obviously forgotten about your conversation with him. This is the latest report out of lansing in regards to financing the home inspection regulatory board.

According to the membership lists of the National Association of Home Inspectors
(NAHI) and the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI), there are currently
approximately 120 home inspectors active in Michigan. The bill, then, would generate at
most $240,000 in revenue initially from the $100 application fee and the $100 license fee.
(It is assumed that, initially, home inspectors would either be exempt from the
examination requirements or not be eligible to sit for the examination. The ASHI only
requires members to pass two examinations and conduct at least 50 inspections. The
NAHI certifies members who've completed at least 250 inspections, complete an
examination, and take continuing education courses. The NAHI membership lists 26
members as Certified Real Estate Inspectors. Members of the NAHI include regular
members who've completed at least 100 inspections and associate members who have
completed 40 hours of training or at least 20 inspections.)
Going forward, the bill provides that fees established within the Occupational Code
should bear a reasonable relation to the department's costs of regulation and
administering the act, and provides that fees established under the act be adjusted
annually based on inflation. (This provision appears to conflict with itself in that an
annual adjustment for inflation may not result in the fee schedule bearing a reasonable
relationship to the department's regulatory costs.) In this regard, the fee schedule
Analysis available at http://www.legislature.mi.gov HB 6088 Page 4 of 4
established in the bill for home inspectors would increase annually by the rate of
inflation, although license fees for other occupations regulated by the Occupational Code
are established by the State License Fee Act (1979 PA 152, MCL 338.2201 et seq.) or
separate licensure acts and, therefore, would not be affected by the bill. The bill would
create the Occupational Fund, which would receive money from any source under the
Occupational Code and the State License Fee Act. Directing revenue from the State
License Fee Act appears, on its face, to be an impermissible amendment by reference, as
the State License Fee Act includes a section providing for the disposition of fee revenue.

The complete report can be read HERE

[John W. Springstead]

Unless I'm bad at math, 120 inspectors at $ 200 ea. is only $ 24,000.00, not $ 240,000.00, which is why I'm betting the state will not pass licensing, no monies to be made, no monies available to implement/operate.
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[Michael Bazzo, CMI]

Originally Posted by jspringstead

Unless I'm bad at math, 120 inspectors at $ 200 ea. is only $ 24,000.00, not $ 240,000.00, which is why I'm betting the state will not pass licensing, no monies to be made, no monies available to implement/operate.
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After using all my fingers and toe's, I agree with the $24,000.00. However I do question there only being 120 inspectors in Michigan, I get that many calls in a month from the competition checking my rates!!!

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by mbazzo

After using all my fingers and toe's, I agree with the $24,000.00. However I do question there only being 120 inspectors in Michigan, I get that many calls in a month from the competition checking my rates!!!

That figure came from ASHI and NAHI. Remember...in their minds, if you do not belong to their "society", you are not a real home inspector.

[Michael Bazzo, CMI]

[quote=jbushart]That figure came from ASHI and NAHI. Remember...in their minds, if you do not belong to their "society", you are not a real home inspector.[/quote)

Understood, but more to the point as I have stated in other post's, Nick claims Inachi will be considered in this bill, guess what, at this point, it's not happening that way.

[Joseph Burkeson, CMI]

Take my word for it that in the end a NACHI favorable bill would be no better than an ASHI favorable bill.

[Michael Bazzo, CMI]

Your most likely right. Licensing in all forms does nothing for our profession, but if we have to swallow it, we may as well have a say so in what we're ingesting

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by mbazzo

Your most likely right. Licensing in all forms does nothing for our profession, but if we have to swallow it, we may as well have a say so in what we're ingesting

Please don't take the poison.

The proponents of licensing know that if you work to change wording...as opposed to work to kill the bill...they will win. They will speak to you the words you just posted....and while they have you over in a corner writing out the bill that you can live with, pretending to be interested....their agenda is going forth.

Yours is not the first state to fight this battle and the tactics of those who will financially benefit from these bills are ruthless and time tested.

Licensing is not inevitable but you have to fight the entire bill, not just a part of it.