For the purpose of this poll, Only Florida Inspectors Please. Your poll results will be made public.
ALASKA
ARIZONA
ARKANSAS
CALIFORNIA
CONNECTICUT
GEORGIA
ILLINOIS
INDIANA
KENTUCKY
LOUISIANA
MARYLAND
MASSACHUSETTS
MISSISSIPPI
MONTANA
NEVADA
NEW_JERSEY
NEW_YORK
NORTH_CAROLINA
NORTH_DAKOTA
OKLAHOMA
OREGON
PENNSYLVANIA
RHODE_ISLAND
SOUTH_CAROLINA
SOUTH_DAKOTA
TENNESSEE
TEXAS
VIRGINIA
WEST_VIRGINIA
WISCONSIN
Non-Florida Inspectors, this thread is for information gathering purposes on behalf of Florida NACHI, you are more than welcome to comment, but please no thread drift. Thanks in advance.
Jay…How about presenting inspectors with the option “No legislation, at all.”?
Jim:
Not for the purpose of this poll. Those wishing to have no legislation, state the reason why the above mentioned laws should not be considered outside of not wanting expanded goverment.
Then the purpose of the poll will not be for someone to state “X% of those polled preferred Peurto Rico’s HI law” or something like that. Cool.
I believe that the majority in your state prefer no law over any of them. Adding that option would certainly provide a balanced and useful response, IMO.
The technique of “choosing which” as opposed to “choosing any” is often used by proponents of HI legislation to further the illusion that “legislation is inevitable”, when it is not.
James,
you are not congnative of the issues that are being brought to bare in this state, you simply are not aware of what is going on here, you have no clue to our macro property and/or insurance issues.
There may be 100’s of big picture interests in the future of the HI business that you have not even thought about, further I have no intent in enlightening you what so ever.
Jay and others are well briefed, and will report to our FL members any developements as and when they occour.
Regards
Gerry
So you and Jay have decided, for the rest, that “no legislation at all” is not an option?
I would not call this “briefing on developments as they occur”. It sounds like manipulating data and/or events.
As Floridians, you and Jay certainly have every right to do what you feel is right for your business…but when you try to speak for all Floridians…you have as much (or as little) right to do that as I do, Gerry.
No James I did not say that, what I said was that you are not cognative of the issues surrounding property in my state.
You obvoiusly have a problem with that, get over it!
BTW, if you had any clue as to what the real issues were you would not be suggesting that no legislation was even an option. QED.
Regards
Gerry
That is nothing more than your opinion, Gerry. An opinion, by the way, that is not shared by your Governor who vetoed the legislature approved bill last year.
You have a right to your opinion, of course. We all do. But don’t disguise this opinion as fact. 15 years of trashing efforts to socialize home inspecting in Florida speaks louder than your post.
Inform the members of the issues, Gerry. Convince them, just as you are obviously convinced, that they need the State to run their business.
Just don’t try to manipulate the issue by removing options and trying the failed tactics of the last session.
James, you missed the part about not being enlightened, this will be my last post in this thread on this subject. Our local members will have plenty of opportunity to discuss whatever the future holds for HI’s in FL.
Regards
Gerry
Exactly my point…in spite of the efforts to remove “no legislation at all” from the table.
I have a strong suspicion that this option will continue to be popular among your local members, as it has for these many years, no matter how hard anyone tries to hide it.
Now…back to the “survey”.
James,
Read the above again
Regards
Gerry
Okay. I read it. Now, read this again…
Your local members have already spoken on this issue when they bombarded the governor with their requests for a veto. The president of our association drafted the governor’s veto letter.
They seem to be pretty much in tune with the issues that effect them…and they continued (and, hopefully, will continue) to read through the smoke and mirrors and trash any attempt to socialize their profession.
While you and/or Jay may wish to remove it as an option of choice, your local members have already voiced to the Governor that “no legislation at all” is a preferred option. Why are you afraid to include it in your survey?
Jay,
I do not like any intrusion from any agency of government into my business. That being said, the situation in Florida is in turmoil (insurance, taxes, etc.)and I’m not that naive to believe there will not be any more efforts to address the “Licensing Issue” from our state government.
Jeb has vetoed past legislation because of riders (mold) to previous bills and it will happen again. When the riders are removed there will be a law passed, in one form or another. Jeb will be gone and a new effort will start in 2007 to kick start the old lobbying process a new. Who knows where the new Governor will be in regards to licensing. My guess he will be too new to bother with this type of issue and it will pass with little regard for our profession or for the consumer.
I would like to hear from other members from the list of states in this thread what is GOOD about their law and what should be changed to make a simple inspection easier for all concerned.
Dan
I haven’t had time to read through all of the laws of the various States but one thing of those I have read keeps showing up. In many cases the “advisory” boards (or whatever name they go by) is made of a small representative number of Home inspectors, at least one consumer member but many of people from other professions sitting on the board. I took the time to go into MyFlorida.com and took a random look at a number of other professionals that are licensed and board regulated. None have people from other professions sitting on the board. Even the Barbers have a board made up of only Barbers and one consumer advocate. Before you vote on something as important as this there needs to be meticulous research of ALL the facts. IOW do not be so quick to jump on a particular law thinking it may be the one answer. In regards to the new Governor. It is a pre-gone conclusion the Crist will be the new Gov-nah and he is well known for being a consumer advocate, a former Insurance Commissioner for Florida and has received a lot of past support from the Florida Builders Assoc. Also keep in the back of your mind that every State that has licensing, the number of inspectors went up dramatically, not down.
Solid post we agree on all points, the thing that I would like to emphasize is very few of the states have followed through with any enforcement. Licensing without enforcement is nothing more then a nuisance tax on home inspectors.
None of the former Florida bills had enforcement that would in the protect the consumer in any way. One of the keys that I believe will stop a bad bill from becoming law is to get other consumer groups working with us and make sure that they know that there is no consumer protection without enforcement.
James,
Perhaps those who don’t post a preference are stating their preference for no licensing.
Might I digress…
My preference, as stated 100’s of times is for no licensing enactment, and I say this as a “licensed inspector”. This thread seems however to be one to simply gauge the thoughts of our FLORIDA inspectors on licensing. As Gerry stated, we have many unique circumstances here and those circumstances are not only germane to FL, but are often specific to small areas of the state, i.e. what works in Key West may not work in Jacksonville, and what works in Jacksonville may not work in Destin, etc.
As I read all of the various laws that have been enacted or proposed I am consistently brought back to the thought “How do any of these actually protect the consumer?” In just about every case, my thought is not at all. Licensing has not protected consumers from bad contractors, and will not protect the consumer from bad home inspectors.
I fully agree that any “board” for regulation should be comprised of nothing but home inspectors. We need not support legislation that puts consumers or Realtors on the board, because that is simply an attempt to curry favor with them. Style over substance, plain and simple.
Some states require E&O for inspectors. I have always felt that E&O is designed to protect inspectors, not consumers, and is a personal business decision that should never be mandated by a governmental agency, especially one that takes huge amounts of money from the insurance lobby.
So, under the guise of “consumer protection” my thought would be that any crafted legislation would have to attempt to ensure that each licensed inspector had the proper training required to be competent, and that a consumer would know exactly what the home inspection did and did not do, through standardized SOP, COE and reporting.
The only legislation I currently see that is close to accomplishing consumer protection is Texas. You must be trained, and are told what to look at, how to report it, and in what format to report it.
No thank you, I live in FL, not TX.
Oh, and James, the President of this association did not draft the Governors veto letter. His letter did contain many of the points I made in my letter to him, but he and his staff are more than capable of independent thought, and letter composition.
I just paid the State of Illinois $800 for my license renewal for 2 years. $400 for my Home Inspector License and $400 for my Home Inspection Entity License. OUCH:shock: :shock: :shock: 
Repeat after me…
A fee is a tax.
A fee is a tax.
A FEE IS A TAX.
[size=2]
**-----------------
"The power to tax involves the power to destroy. " **
[/size]*Chief Justice John Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819.
What are you getting for your $800?
*[size=2]
[/size]
Jay,
sorry this is not related to FL. but it brings a point that we are all in the
same boat. I feel that NACHI as an organization should be more involved.
makes our organization look very unorganized and unprofessional in my opinion.
Jay and Blaine have you guys read the proposed NH LSR submitted by Rep.
Baroody for the 2007 session? I would like to know your opinions.
CJ