Washington Home Inspectors Poll

General Inspection Topics Legislation, Licensing, Ethics & Legal Issues
1

So here comes a recommendation from an “Advisory Group” on language for Home Inspections Legislation as posted earlier in this BB. I figured I would put a limited time poll on the board to see who is interested as it is written and their response. Below is the “recommended rules”.

The poll has multiple answers. Please check all that apply. The “favor with exceptions” has 4 items listed below it. Choose all that YOU OBJECT TO. Then there is the SPI issue. Would you keep your SPI or drop it.

Thanks to all, but would like to limit this to Washington Inspectors or those currently performing inspections in Washington.

RECOMMENDED RULES

The following ****Qualifications for a Home Inspector ****have been approved by The Washington Home Inspectors Legislative Advisory Group. They are presented in bullet format, in no particular order of importance. They are to be considered ****minimum standards ****for a candidate pursuing a license as a home inspector.

****Education ****
A candidate must:

  1. Possess a high school degree or equivalent.
  2. Complete 120 hours of live classroom education as approved by the governing board.
  3. Pass a nationally recognized, psychometrically evaluated, and legally defensible home inspectors’ exam. At this time there are two such exams available.

Mentoring
A candidate must:

  1. Perform 30 parallel, on-site, and fully supervised home inspections with a licensed home inspector who is performing a fee-paid home inspection as defined by the Standards of Practice.
  2. The final five parallel inspections must be submitted to the governing board with the candidate’s licensing application. The five inspections will be reviewed for competency by means of standards established by the governing board.

Exemptions
No other professional accreditation or license will exempt an individual who desires to be licensed as a home inspector from fulfilling the requirements of home inspector licensing.

Reciprocity
Possessing a home inspector’s license from a state other than Washington will not exempt an individual who desires to perform home inspections in Washington State from fulfilling the requirements of Washington home inspector licensing.

Citizenship
A candidate must be legally authorized to do business in the United States and the state of Washington.

Insurance
A candidate must carry $100,000 in Errors and Omissions Insurance or a $100,000 Surety Bond.

Grandfather Clause
Home inspectors currently practicing in the state of Washington must register with the governing board within one year of the establishment of the regulation. Established inspectors will be required to pay the initial registration fee, but will not have to meet the new education and mentoring requirements. Established inspectors will be required to provide proof of having been in the business of home inspecting for at least three years (by providing tax documents, etc.); and proof of having performed at least 250 full and complete home inspections as defined by the Standards of Practice; and proof of having taken and passed one of the nationally recognized, psychometrically evaluated, and legally defensible home inspectors’ exams as approved by the RCW.

Structural Pest Inspectors License
Possessing a home inspector’s license under new legislation will exempt licensees from having to hold a Structural Pest Inspectors License. If and when a home inspector observes evidence of wood-destroying insect activity, the inspector must defer to, and recommend further evaluation by a licensed Structural Pest Inspector or Pest Control Operator.

Limit of Liability
The limit of liability for a home inspector shall be one year from the date of the home inspection.

Governing Board
The following Governing Board makeup has been approved by the Washington Home Inspectors Legislative Advisory Group.

  1. Number and Makeup of Board Members: the Board will be made up of seven (7) members: six (6) home inspectors and one (1) member-at-large.
  2. Credentials of Board Member Home Inspectors: must have at least seven years of experience as a home inspector in the state of Washington; must meet current state licensing requirements; must have performed 1,000 home inspections as defined in the current RCW.
  3. Board Terms: terms for home inspectors will be staggered for the fist year at two inspectors for one year; two inspectors for two years; and two inspectors for three years; the term of the member-at-large will be three years; thereafter all terms for all Board members will be three years; all Board members will be limited to two consecutive terms as a maximum.

State Representation
We recommend that both the east and west sides of the state of Washington have representation on the Board.

2

Is this the self-appointed advisory group?

3

SMELLS LIKE ASHI TO ME. :twisted:
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4

Who were the members on the advisory board and what are their backgrounds?
Did NACHI have a member on the committee?

5

If it is the same advisory commitee as before, there was no NACHI member. Two or three were ASHI and the “independent” member was the husband of the Western Wa. ASHI chapter president. Rick Bunzel was also on the commitee but as a NAHI member.
That mentoring thing will never work. Are they going to pay “mentors”? Who is going to want to train their future competition?
This thing does have ASHI written all over it.
Any idea when it would become official, if it passes?

6

Likely that a bill will be introduced this legislative session. If passed, laws usually go into effect the following July (July 2008.) I dislike much of this proposal and yes, it seems to be heavily ASHI weighted.

7

Here are the names of the people on the “Advisory Committee” that were listed on a January 2007 letter and their affiliation.

Walker Armstrong, CRI (n.a.h.i.)
Dave Byers, CRI (n.a.h.i.)
Rick Bunzel (n.a.h.i.)
Joe DeMarco (n.a.h.i.)
Arne Williams (n.a.h.i.)
Mark Daughtry, CMI (a.i.i.)
Roger Craddock (a.s.h.i.)
Gary Fuller (a.s.h.i.)
Hugh Kelso (a.s.h.i.)
Paul Luczyk (a.s.h.i.)
Joanne MacKintosh (a.s.h.i.)
Sandy Hartman (Advisory Group Secretary) (A.S.H.I.)
Bruce MacKintosh (Independent)
Richard Moore
Michael O’Handley
Dave Pioli, PE National Association of Building Inspection Engineers
Duane Roundy Washington State Pest Control Association
Andrew Sodano (n.a.c.h.i.) membership expired
Cyndy Patzman (n.a.c.h.i.) membership expired
Jerry Domagala, CMI (n.a.c.h.i.) membership expired

8

Worse than I thought. Bruce MacIntosh is married to Joanne MacKintosh and are part of the same company. Why is he allowed to be listed as an independent?

9

At some point we have to ask why NACHI is so far behind the 8 ball on this one. Why isn’t our org actively involved? With 9000 members I should think we have the money for some professional lobbying and involvement.

10

If, in fact, what Stephen posted was accurate – that our members on the committee are no longer even in NACHI – we did not have very active representation. If that reflects the extent of our interest, and participation, no wonder ASHI seems to be the bigger player in these markets.

11

I checked each member prior to posting the information. In the last couple of hours, Cyndy Patzman has renewed her membership, or the server has been updated …as have I…oops. Many times it is an oversight. The red warning “time to renew” banner does not come up unless you sign in as a member, not just on the message board, but in the “members only” section. I thought I was January until I checked.

Jerry Domagala just lapsed in November and based on my own experience, it may have slipped past him.

 Andrew Sodano still has NACHI prominently advertised on his website but does not show up anywhere, nor does his partner.

Steve

12

I talked to Domagala a couple of weeks ago, he didn’t mention that his membership had expired, he did say he would miss the meeting on 29 Dec because of holiday plans.

The proposal is not too, bad, I believe the 250 Inspections might be high, that even limits ASHI candidates, and as far as the mentoring goes there is no program set up to control it, what inspector is going to train his/her competition? The 3 year requiement in the grandfather clause is also too high, most of this proposal seems to involve members of the Advisory Board protecting their own interests.

The SOP, as I understand from my conversation with Domagala, is a combination of ASHI’s, NACHI’s, and NAHI’s with the stipulation that you cannot do work on the home you have inspected.

13

According to Nick Jerry Domagala is being paid to represent NACHI on the Advisory Board, he probably did just forget to pay his membership fee. There were other members of NACHI on the Board but they left without nominating anyone to replace them, Soldano did nominate someone when he left last Spring, but the person he nominated had only joined NACHI a month or so before and had never performed and Inspection, the board refused to even consider her/him as a member, ever since she/he has made continuous snide remarks about the board. Domagala, as NIck says, is our representative, all objections or proposal changes should be directed to him, and of course to Senator’s Spanel and Kohle-Wells. You can find his email by searcing “Find an Inspector” in Bellinghom. Jerry must be getting to be an Old Fart, it turns out he and I were stationed together many, many moons ago, I knew his name was familiar.

14

I was asked by several members to be a professional lobbyist for Washington State in this whole thing. I was railroaded out by several of the members listed above, including a couple of the expired NACHI members (one of which is still allowed to hold a NACHI chapter presidency).

I was very much all fired up to do this and unfortunately rather than supporting me, the inspectors around me that are now going to be affected by this, have no representation and are going to be very unhappy about it.

15

You shouldn’t talk about anything if you don’t know the situation.

When someone is a representative, whether as a member of an advisory board or a lobbyist, it really doesn’t matter how many inspections they’ve done. What matters is that our org has representation and it looks like politics got in the way and now we’re assed out.

Considering how many comments you made about Jerry not coming back and telling all of us what is going on in this committee, you would be the one making the snide remarks it seems.:roll:

16

I disagree.

“Representation” in drafting legislation is ludicrous. The majority will rule and the majority on this so called “advisory board” is going to stick to the ASHI legislative model, no matter who might be on this board.

Your representation is in your legislature.

Starting today, the prudent Washington home inspector will begin a steady stream of phone calls and emails to his/her representative to let them know the following:

  1. This proposal does not represent your views.
  2. This proposal will increase the cost of home inspections to the consumer and is designed to eliminate competition by the inspectors who drafted it.
  3. Fewer inspectors resulting in less competition will provide the consumer with fewer choices and higher fees.

Then, spread the word to your market that you oppose this attempt being made by some greedy home inspectors to use the legislature to perform a lesser service for a higher fee.

17

Oh, no I agree with that totally.

My point is, is that now that they didn’t do anything they’ll try to pin that on everyone else as well by saying they are now at the mercy of the new laws. But they won’t oppose it. Probably in the hopes of the off chance they can use something to their advantage.

18

In lobbying I wouldn’t be lobbying for any laws, I’d be lobbying against any laws in HI as well as lobbying to get rid of the WDO laws. But I think they’ll go that direction no matter what happens.

19

Everybody needs to realize that this is only a recommendation. Legislators are banged on all the time. I think it likely that some legislation will emerge this session, however legislators are influenced by large numbers of people who are vocal. If this recommendation appears to be the “unanimous” opinion of those in the industry it will likely pass as it is, or close to it. However, if there is plenty of logical, non-hysterical, input some changes are likely. For example,

Oregon, about the nearest state, requires ride-alongs on 10 inspections for newbies. It does not require full reports nor 30 inspections, which is cumbersome and, in fact, existing inspectors could actually lock someone out of the field by refusing to do mentoring. In other words, the legislators can write a law demanding this mentoring, but it is unlikely that they can force those who are licensed to take others out on inspections. What if inspectors refused to do this or want $100 per hour to mentor? Let us see, with a four hour inspection x30 of them, that would cost a newbie $12,000 for mentoring. And, if nobody cooperated, the newbie is hooped. I think legislators might respond well to comments pointing out that this has the chance of unfairly, and severely, limiting competition.

Other than that, it seems likely that the grandfather clause could be modified to fewer inspections than 250 and something reasonable but less than three years experience.

In Oregon, they created their own state test. They do not accept NHIE nor any other test but their own. That is one a person has to think about, as far as what he or she would prefer.

My basic point is: If you have problems with this, and live in Washington State, get involved. Talk to, lobby, lawmakers. Likely something will happen this year so make sure you work for the best possible licensing. Do not sit back and settle for something you cannot or you will have problems living with.

Steve

20

Who are the several that asked you to represent the whole org? What qualifications would you have for this position? Experience? I think the key word is professional.