Thanks Nick, no one should miss this meeting.
I hope Alberta does the right thing and grandfathers existing inspectors into its licencing endeavours. I also hope that licencing will have a governance board that is not entirely made up of home inspectors but also has lay people on the board to ensure everything is out in the open and not solely open only to home inspectors.
Regards,
Brock Ketchum, the Board Chair is a good man.
Yes I met with him in Toronto at the great Nachi conference. He is sincere and they couldn’t have put a better man on the job.
Regards,
If licensing comes about in Alberta and presumably elsewhere later, doesn’t this put an end to the smoke screen that the National is truly national?
Hey, wait till you see the free door prizes I have to give out at this meeting, gonna top the Toronto Convention.
Hardly.
Both the Alberta and the British Columbia licensing models are going to be based on the National Occupational Standards and the National Certification Program. Bank on it.
Bill Mullen
PS: Keep your eye on Manitoba as well.
There are good ideas everywhere that all licensing boards can draw from in developing their own form of licensing regulation (should that come about). If it is a sensible idea that would make the licensing procedure better for the consumer (no standardized reporting forms which limit consumer access to innovation) and more fair to individual inspectors (no association bias or forced pier review which leads to limiting consumer choice), who cares who thought of it originally? Canadian Provinces have it easy as they have access to the states as guinea pigs and can see all the various stupid things different states tried as they enacted home inspector regulation (some of which have been devastating to consumers and in several cases have lead to consumers being killed). I’ve offered my assistance to all Provinces as I’ve been monitoring licensing for 20 years now and can show how many regulations that look great on paper are pretty close to mass murder once enacted.
Anyway, we’ve added 2 more presenters, one broker and one insurance rep: http://www.nachi.org/albertalm2007.htm It will be a very good meeting.
That’s right, Nick.
I have met with government people from BC. Manitoba and Alberta and the common theme is that the Feds helped pay for a uniform, fair standard that crosses provincial borders, so why re-invent the wheel?
That doesn’t mean that CAHPI or the NCA will have any control over licensing, nor should they.
I doubt they will drop the peer review, however. We’ve received very good comments from them about it, but then again, who can predict what will happen with governments?
Bill Mullen
Peer review works. We use it at NACHI with our 4 mock inspection entrance requirement. I just tonight suggested a form of it at post #19 on this thread: http://www.nachi.org/forum/showthread.php?t=21963&page=2
Where it has problems is when it is used as a requirement to license home inspectors (rather than educate them) and where the peers are members of your association’s competing association OR WORSE where the peers are your direct competitors. Such peer review in those cases harms consumers.
The best type of peer review is by disinterested parties who belong to no association or even better, aren’t or are no longer inspectors themselves and are compensated financially for their review work they do for the government and have absolutely no financial interest, no association social pressure and no conflict of interest that could possibly cause them to go light on poor inspectors and heavy handed on good inspectors. That really harms consumers. And don’t think it doesn’t happen, I’ve seen it. Any regulation proposal that would force a member of one association to have his work reviewed by a member of another association who is a direct competitor of the applicant… is Stupid with a capital “S.”
Can anyone tell me the purpose of licensing?
If you say “to increase standards or raise the bar” or something like that I’m going to laugh.
The purpose of licensing is to provide a mechanism for the government to get a bum off the street and legally prohibit him/her from offering inspection services to the public.
Just like a drivers license doesn’t stop speeding or drunk driving, a home inspetor’s license doesn’t stop the number one killer of consumers (no it isn’t incompetence)… inspector complacency on the job.
MADD says most drunk drivers have valid drivers licenses, so what’s the point? The point is to provide the government a method by which to pull those bums off the road, or in the case of lazy inspectors… off the roof.
Licencing = integrity at the oversite level.
If the licencing is formed from the National, that is great.
What is not needed is oversite of home inspectors overseeing themselves. There are just too many conflicts, special interests and other issues which have clouded the issue for too long. These long held attitudes are ingrained and will not be relinquished easily.
Licencing will be like opening the window and let a fresh breeze blow through the house, taking with it the stale stagnant air of self authority.
The best of both worlds provided all inspectors determine their future, and what is best for them. We don’t need nor want licencing that is done without input from all corners of the profession.
Give your head a shake Bill (if that rattling sound doesn’t bother you of course)
If Alberta enacts licensing why would any Albertan pay thousads of dollars to your organization just for the right to an anal exam? (Here is a hint for you- answer ; NONE) So if inspectors are not joining your happy little old boys club in one or several provinces it is no longer “national”.
Simple concept. I am sure you can get it. :roll:
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Raymond, We will have to agree to disagree regarding licensing. The so called benifits just don’t seem to materialize.
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)
Michael
No one asked you to agree, you don’t know the politicts or the egos up here so your comments are moot, the fact is the same issues state side do not relate to what is and has gone on up here. Unfortunately people up here who oversee inspectors elected by inspectors have not and will not be accountable to the members. No one has offered logical well thougth ways to make it work, what other conceivable options are there?
Gee, George, I didn’t see you at any of the meetings with the government guys, yet you know more about their intentions than I do. That’s amazing. …but then again you have never let a lack of knowledge get in the way of your uninformed opinion.
We already have several people in our little ‘club’ from every province, so it’s already National. If a provincial government says that the credential requirement for licensing is the NCA or equivalent, people will gladly apply for the National Certification or something else that has equivalency.
I understand your reticence, George. The TIPR makes you actually have to prove you know how to do an inspection, so your fears are likely well founded.
Bill Mullen
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Bill
One problem with your scenario. Your little club is just that, it remains to be seen if it flourishes, and chances are with provincial licencing it will remove CAHPI and NCA from the equation. Even though the National program may be used as the benchmark it will not be CAHPI/National responsibility to oversee or enforce the provisions.
Raymond, Excuse me for having an opinion. You boys go on and on and on.
I will stand on the side of freedom. You of course are free to choose to give up some of your freedom for some perceived good. Good luck with that. Please continue your p***ing match. I’m sure it will result in something worthwhile. 
I and others have already had our freedom subverted by egotistical self rightous self regulating zealots so licencing will be a welcome change. And as you can see licencing is happening so it seems its been anything but a pizzing match. So it has been worthwhile disproving your views.
Carry on.
I’m normally fairly humble with regard to my own personal strengths, but with regard to home inspector licensing and its effects, I consider myself to be an expert. Licensing harms consumers and inspectors alike and I have state after state to point to as proof. Licensing doubles to triples the number of inspectors (competitors) out there, almost overnight… and it keeps only 1 or 2 nutcases out of the business. This is harmful to inspectors because it floods the market and makes it difficult for anyone to earn a living. It then gets worse… home inspection schools open up on every corner and start pumping out licensed inspectors by the thousands. It gets worse… no one earning any money means no one can afford to be excellent, which harms consumers even further. Then often a jackass board starts approving themseleves and their buddies as the only continuing education providers, which makes things even worse for inspectors and consumers. Then hungry, the peer reviewers start coming down hard on everyone to try to hang on to their industry. Then the credential-only association that pushed for it all realizes no one is joining because the government is now offering the real credential… a license, so it starts to collapse and its leadership starts to get desperate and so starts promoting a no-entrance-requirement (ASHI-style) associate/candidate push which dumps even more inspectors into the market. Then some goofball suggests that the government should adopt standardized reporting which throws innovation out the window and harms consumer’s choice even more. The standardized reporting forces an overcrowded market full of inspectors who all went to the same dumb school to compete solely on price, which drives prices down. Fee structures in licensed states always go down after regulation is adopted, just like number of inspectors always goes up. Then the government realizes that there is a lot more to regulating this ever growing industry than they thought at first and so they start saying stupid stuff like “why aren’t infrared cameras in the government approved SOP?” And don’t even start with the E&O insurance issue which permits for profit companies to settle bogus claims against inspectors, drop their insurance and put them on a blacklist of uninsurable all at no fault of the inspector. By the time it is all over, all the original licensing pushers end up standing in the middle of their big mess, shaking their heads, and wondering what the hell went wrong.
The only one to come out on top is NACHI, as everyone ends up realizing that NACHI provides all that a government won’t and all that a struggling inspector needs.
Licensing, great for NACHI, horrible for NACHI members and everyone else.
Be careful with what you ask for… you might get it.