Florida has been toying with home inspector licensing since the early 90’s, currently this has to be the very worse licensing bill to ever be signed into law in any state… It has no Standards of Practice, no Code of Ethics, no enforcement, and no consumer protection… In essence no regulation whatsoever.
I have posted the 1994 Sunrise Study on my website and it is available for download here. In it you will find that registration was thought to be the highest form of regulation necessary to police our profession, and I agree.
How would Registration work you ask? Through the associations already operating in the state. The state would require you to join one of the associations who have an approved;
Standards of Practice
Code of Ethics
Continuing Education Requirements
This would cost the state almost nothing… Want to make the registration even better? Then add E&O as a requirement and you would most likely have one of the better home inspector licensing laws in the land.
Funny story, I ispec@t a condo for a snowbird. Client asks me to do repairs and remodeling, i tell him i cant. He hires someone else. Water heater etc is 8 years old. Guy he hire tells him his inpector sucks and water heater and airhandler are from 92 and needs to be replaced asap. Turns out I was right and his contractor was either stupid or pullin a fast one.
Would he have been better protected if I was allowed to do the work for him? True story. Hmm I wonder
I think the I might have found an ally in my quest to repeal home inspector licensing… Florida Consumer Action Network, I will be contacting them for their help in the repeal along with anyone else who wants to participate, gotta work fast as there is rumblings out of Tallahassee of a recall vote on Governor Scott.
Joe did you see how the coe did not protect my client. It actually almost damaged my reputation and left my client to be taken advantage of. Don’t you agree
Preston if you weren’t a contractor you might have developed a book of trusted trades people who you could have recommended, instead you threw your client to the wolves… I suggest that you develop a Level of Care for your clients which places their needs above yours and learn to love the Code of Ethics.
Now you’re getting it. The C.O.E. is wrong the way it is written.
Preston that is only in there so Contractors do not give free or cheap inspections in hopes of finding work. I have been screaming that for about a year I think.
If any of you wish to be told what to do just contact me and I will tell you what to do for free.
Get everyone out of you businesses now if possible. None of you need the State or anyone else telling you how to run your business and what you must do.
Since there are so many accepted SOP’s around, all of which are similar with the exception of Texas, they can pick one. Naturally, I would prefer to work to the iNACHI SOP and COE.
If the registration law simply said “follow the SOP of one of the national associations and state which one you follow” fine. Force anyone to join? No way. Then you just shift the power from one hand to the other.
I have had a required license since my county adopted a license in 2002 which required 3 years exp., pass the NHIE with a score of 555 or better, carry gl, background and credit check and some other crap I can’t remember. It was useless, because the inspectors from other counties worked here anyway. It was somones hair brained idea on how to limit the competition, I suppose. It was $100 per year or something, plus the $35 occ license.
The state license is useless, except that it did allow home insectors to perform some insurance inspections for a paltry fee.
It’s here and it’s done. If it goes away, great. If it stays in it’s present form, so what. What wil be a problem is when some asswipe decides to mold the law into their version of what a home inspector should be. That will come from either some power hungry home inspector(s) that have any of several different mindsets all stemming from the thought that the only way to do an inspection is their way, or from a hairbrained government official or committee of hairbrained government officials and power hungry inspectors, realtors, contractors or all of the above.
I personally like Joe B. and know that he is a good inspector. His idea for registration is not any better to me, though, so I would oppose that too. We can’t ever get 10 inspectors to agree on anything, including licensing.
