What’s been going on for a year now is simple, once the MSFH funding was exhausted in June 2008 the WCE’s went out on a mission to monopolize the private market given there new found millions courtesy of our tax dollars. The approach was basically to have the form changed to benefit them while putting unfair restriction on all other professional in our State.
I spearheaded a movement last December with the FES (Fl engineering society) the Florida *** of consulting engineers, several firms involved in the inspection market which are also Nachi members and several attorneys. The result was that everything was put on hold, and the OIR asked us to submit proposed forms and we did, along with ideas on proper credentials and acceptable ways to enforce the existing laws to ensure that those bad and fraudulent inspectors would be prosecuted. Obviously they hang there hats on the amount of faulty bad inspections in the market and use that excuse to monopolize and infringe on our constitutional right to work rather than just enforce the laws that are already in place.
All of our ideas and proposals went on death ears, it is obvious to us that the idea was to make us believe we were actually going to play a roll in some fashion and our ideas would be respectfully considered and discussed, none of this happened.
In the mean time for those who may not be aware, the WCE’s have taken a different approach. They have gone directly to the underwriters and lobbied using whatever scare tactics and unjustly obtain influence and financial strength obtained courtesy of MSFH. The result is that now more and more of the underwriters in Florida are giving these WCE firms exclusive rights to inspect and therefore discriminating upon those which are allowed by law to perform these inspections. Furthermore; they get away with this unethical manner of conducting business by stating that the insurance company will pay for the inspection so therefore since its there money they get to choose the inspector. This is wrong, because for one, if anyone thinks that the cost of the inspection is not going to be built into the premium and thus the homeowner ultimately is going to pay for it regardless I have a bridge to sell them. Besides the infringement on our constitutional and legal rights as well as the violation of anti-trust laws to protect industry from this kind of behavior which are being violated, it is also a conflict of interest since the purpose of the inspection is for the issuance of credits or deductions and being that the inspector is a direct contractor of and works for the entity that is supposed to give those discounts to the insured the inherited implications are of a conflict.
Then you have a $60,000,000 contract that Citizens a State subsidized entity with tax dollars gave behind closed doors in back room negotiations without a competitive bidding process to one single firm which is entrusted to check up on and police there competitors; does this sound right? Will they be motivated to biased review? Who is checking the inspections they perform? Are they perfect? Not according to MSFH which there own audits show a spotty track record when this entity was performing inspections for them. If it smells bad to you, it probably is.
This is just the tip of the ice berg, the language on this proposed form that still allows the MSFH inspectors to sign is ridiculous, there is no MSFH anymore. By law the program expired on June 30, 2009; so who are they accountable to? Who regulates them? the language that states “other qualified entity” was not put there for Inter Nachi, it is designed so that the WCE’s could comfortably recruit unqualified non-licensed people so they can fulfill the massive volume of work they are expecting since Nachi certified inspectors won’t work for $50.00, and it is not easy and most of the time impossible to have a licensed professional work for that as well. This is an unfair competitive advantage too.
I will be there on the 21st, I strongly advise anyone and everyone to join me in a show of force to try to stop this atrocity.
Regards to all,
Jose’ F. Uz, Ph.D., CRC, CPO, CHI, CHC, M-NFPA, FHA INSP., Fellow of the ABI and Proud member of InterNachi
President
Caribbean ***Realty*Support Services, Inc.
Toll Free 866-261-2242
Serving 15 Florida Counties
Inspections, Surveys & Engineering Services
**“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent their government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” **
Thomas Jefferson 1787