What is hapening to the HI Industry?

When a few of us Old-timers started to introduce home inspections to the public in the seventies - everyone operated by his/her own standards of practice. We all used a simple and straightforward disclaimer to outline the limitations of our services.

My expertise consisted of common sense and thirty years of construction experience in Europe and Canada. Always calling a "spade a spade" kept me virtually out of trouble and courtrooms. Having been in this business for about 35 years - I only had to defend myself in two frivolous Small Claims Court actions. Both claims were dismissed without any costs to me. I never used my EO insurance underwriter for assistance, because insurance companies very seldom fight - but simply try to settle the dispute within the amount of the deductible.

In my view there are two major problems which have contributed to he messes in the Canadian home inspection industry. Number one is the fact that the majority of home inspectors are depending on referrals from the manipulative real estate profession to generate a meagre living in comparison to their exposure to risk. The developed dependency is unacceptable because it might affect the impartiality of individuals who are desperate to maintain their main source of income.

But more problematic is the fact that clever home inspectors who have turned franchise operators or training course providers are trying to convince gullible wanna-bees that they can become rich by simply purchasing a 7-day training course or franchise. These mislead and ill-advised individuals are simply not sufficiently trained to carry out home inspections satisfactorily - and therefore only exposing themselves to complaints and lawsuits.

None of the numerous Canadian organizations has managed to stop the chaos in the industry. It is therefore not surprising that more and more provincial governments are contemplating regulating home inspectors as they see fit.

RUDOLF REUSSE - Home Inspector since 1976 - **Retired **

Consolidation will fix that. We are going through a consolidation period in our industry. Soon, every inspection will be an InterNACHI member-performed inspection.

Sure Nick,keep dreaming.

Hm. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, I heard that when we said…

  • InterNACHI will one day be awarded hundreds of government approvals for its online inspection courses.
  • InterNACHI will one day create a full-color library of inspection-related graphics.
  • InterNACHI’s website will one day be hundreds of thousands of pages big.
  • InterNACHI’s message board will one day get hundreds of thousands of posts.
  • InterNACHI will one day publish dozens of inspection books and hundreds of inspection-related articles.
  • InterNACHI will one day launch its own online TV show in hi-def that will also offer online video inspection courses.
  • InterNACHI will one day be the largest inspection trade association in the U.S., Canada, and the world.
  • and on and on.

And I’ll make another “keep dreaming” prediction. This prediction is so far fetched that many will think it totally impossible, but here goes: I predict the day will come when this website gets it’s 10 millionth unique visitor.

I know, you think I’m dreaming.