States HI license legislation

[Steven C. Meyer]

Have noticed so many states considering/passing legislation for the licensing of home inspectors, including my state of Washington.

Question??? Is all of this necessary, and who is behind this push for so many of the states to consider licensing?

If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

In all the years that home inspections has been around, seems that the industry has done a reasonable job of self regulation. Bad news travels fast, and my experience has been that a bad inspector doesn't last to long.

Has there been that many poorly done inspections to warrent all of this?

In my years as a contractor, I have not come accross a bad inspection report. Yes, some of them were a little "picky", but were accurate.

[James H. Bushart]

Legislation is pushed from several small sub-groups for their own special interests.

1. New inspectors who think that being "licensed" will immediately raise them to a level of equal competency with all of their "licensed" competitor.

2. Inspectors who have been in the business for a short while or longer who are struggling....and believe that creating "hurdles" will reduce the number of new competitors. Easy to recognize, this is the guy with 61 months in the business who wants to grandfather everyone at 5 years or more.

3. Inspectors who have been in the business for a long time and no longer want to inspect. They create the need for all new inspectors to attend training...then take jobs with the schools to train them.

4. First and foremost...is the state group of real estate salesmen (Maine Association of Realtors, Florida Association of Realtors, etc...etc) who want to control the profession in the hope that it will reduce "killed deals".

The real estate salespeople provide the money and political infrastructure and the inspectors, through ASHI, provide the work and support and model legislation.

Note that no where in the process has anyone ever seen or heard of or from a consumer. They are not a part of this process, although they are often referred to.

Sometimes, local ASHI chapters will work with local media to provide "victims" of poor inspections to add some emotion to their appeal...but this is not done in every case.

But that is the "why". It has repeated itself over and over enough to be more than a theory...but fact.

[Dan Bowers, CMI]

Jim -

Since the State Realtor Associations tell legislators they are the "Lone Voice" OR "Advocate" for the homeowners in a state, I find it hard to believe that our commissioned used house sales people could be behind this.

Dorothy & Toto in Kansas

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by dbowers

Jim -

Since the State Realtor Associations tell legislators they are the "Lone Voice" OR "Advocate" for the homeowners in a state, I find it hard to believe that our commissioned used house sales people could be behind this.

Dorothy & Toto in Kansas

A real estate salesman as the "Lone Voice" for the homeowner is like having Jeffrey Dahmer as the "Lone Voice" for lunch meat.