NY State HI Advisory Board Council meeting update.
Joe Farsetta
On Wednesday, August 15th, a public meeting was held in Albany NY regarding the proposed Standards of
Practice and Code of Ethics, as crafted by the Home Inspection Advisory Council.
This meeting came on the heels of hundreds of letters sent to Whitney Clark, Counsel
for the NY State Department of State, in response to the public review and comment
period.
The public meeting started at 10:30 am, to a packed house. Many inspectors who
came to participate were turned away, as the venue was a bit small for the turn-out
of concerned inspectors who had hoped to express their opinions during the meeting.
The room was filled to capacity with 75 attendees, many of whom were standing.
The morning session (which went from 10:30 am until approximately 2:00 pm) dealt
primarily with the proposed Code of Ethics. InterNACHI's own Joe Farsetta (above) was
a speaker and spoke about several facts relative to home inspectors, the differences
between home inspections and professional engineering, and respectfully requesting
that the DOS and Advisory Council think carefully about the long-term and rippling
effects that their decisions may have on the industry in NY.
Other issues that Joe brought to light stemmed from a discussion the Council
had on ancillary service and general competence. Joe pointed out that ancillary
services, not covered in an SOP, may be beyond the purview of the Council, and
beyond the reach of the law. Currently, radon testing and Termite inspections
are not controlled, along with other potential services, including swimming pool
inspections.
Joe also requested that the Council reconsider a decision made at a previous
meeting making it illegal for an inspector to bring a subject matter expert to
an inspection unless that SME is a licensed inspector. Joe pointed to ASTM 2018-01
as the commercial inspection standard widely used, and sometimes required. In
it, the standard specifies that SMEs should be brought into the inspection team
to bring additional expertise to the table. Although part of the commercial standard,
Joe's point was to raise awareness and to state that the decision to disallow
similar activities in a residential setting was a disservice to the public. Joe
also stated that he believes that all PEs are not qualified to be competent inspectors
simply because they have a PE designation. He stated that the PE law is a good
law, but may be too broadly written, allowing for the current situation to have
developed.
In a surprising turn, a representative of the Professional Engineers who were
in attendance stated that she believed that the Home Inspection profession was
"new" and that Professional Engineers in the State worked very hard to carve out
their turf through the years. In short, they may be unwilling to give up any of
this perceived "turf."
Yet another PE who spoke claimed that home inspectors may state that something
appears defective, but cannot state that something s defective. Apparently, the belief is that home inspectors are
neither qualified, nor permitted to state any condition they believe to be self-evident,
as per current PE law..
Public comment was lively and informative. After the public comment session was
concluded, the Council suspended the meeting for lunch. The afternoon session
dealt with the SOP portion of the proposed documents, but with more than 50 pages
of public commentary received, the matter was tabled for a month.
Based on observations made, it is clear that Home Inspectors are in for a long
hard fight with the opinions expressed by some Professional Engineers in attendance,
the opinions expressed by the Executive Director of the NY State Association of
Professional Engineers, and by the comments expressed by the Council Chair (himself
a PE).
What was quite encouraging, however, were the comments and conduct of other Council
members, and more particularly Ms. Whitney Clark, Counsel for the DOS/DOL. Ms.
Clark has the daunting task of helping to guide the process and craft it into
a set of regulations acceptable to the DOS and to the Governor's Office on Regulatory
Reform. She's trying to do the best job she can. We are also quite fortunate to
have a superb team from the DOS involved. We couldn't ask for a nicer and more
professional group of folks. By mid-day, significant progress had been bade to
elimnate a bunch of objetonable clauses, references, and language.
Switching gears again, it was obvious that throughout the discussions by Council
members, the Chairman seemed to be quite concerned with ensuring compliance with
"the law". The law he was referring to was the PE law, not the HI law. A lot of
time was spent with Council members battling over small details with verbiage,
and wherever the Chair perceived the COE to being changed in any way with regard
to loosening some draconian verbiage previously contained. Again, other Council
members and Ms Clark were quite supportive to revisions which were reasonable.
We can understand the Chair's position on the matter, as he is also a member of
the PE licensing board, and would hope that he continues to appreciate and respect
that he is dealing with two LICENSED professions. Yes, home inspectors are LICENSED,
and despite anything to the contrary, his duty is to advise the DOS on things
that matter with regard to moving forward with the SPIRIT of THIS law, as crafted
and intended; not as a means of control of one profession over another. This should
NOT be about protectionism.
We forsee a much heavier discussion on the horizon with regard to the proposed
SOP, as NY's version stands out as the sole document in all licensed states that
begins with what an Inspector is NOT required to do, as opposed to what we should
be includig in an inspection.
With the restrictions proposed, and the comments made by PEs, one needs to wonder
whether this is about public safety or about turf. Again, based on some of the
comments made and the demeanor of some of the PE participants, the latter seems
to be what is at issue. Indeed, may be shaping into a turf battle, especially
with the PEs putting up their own FAQ web-page to "offer clarification" on the
matter. Farsetta also asked that FAQ pages be monitored so as to not push an agenda
favoring either faction.
On another note, it was particularly interestng that the PEs have not called
for the ouster of every electrical inspector and municipal code inspector in NY
State. Let's face it, these inspectors rely on the application of engineering
principals to decide what is safe or not safe, and issue Certificates of Occupancy
accordingly. This includes residential, commercial, and industrial applications.
Yet, there is no requirement for these inspectors to be professional engineers.
In fact, the head of a building department in NY also need not be a PE. Yet, in
a true situation where someone other than a licensed PE is dealing directly with
public safety, the NY State Association of Professional Engineers is silent on
the matter. One has to ponder what is so very special about home inspectors. Is
it because the issue is really one of revenue?
Finally, one of the more significant comments was made by NYSAHI's Doug Myers,
who pretty much laid down the gauntlet by stating that he evaluates the adequacy
of systems every day and that he has saved lives and millions of dollars for his
clients. Bravo, Doug!
The next Council meeting is scheduled for October 10. This will be a "working
session" meeting, meaning that, unlike committee meetings, the entire Council
can attend, and the meeting is open to the public. The next full meeting will
be November 28th.
Meeting attendees from the InterNACHI / NYSAHI / ASHI / NAHI joint "Task Force" included
Greg Harwood, Keith Oberg, Doug Myers, John Gerardi, Joe Farsetta and John Zito.
Also, thanks to NYNACHI's Pat Maietta and Tom Fisher for their continued support
and photos.
As to the future, only time will tell. A webcast video of the meeting is planned
to be posted in a few days. Stay tuned.
