IN TN a law is on the table for approval within the next 30 days. Are there any other TN agents want to sound off on this? Is it a good thing? Some may think to have the inspectors regulated and held to a standard is a good thing. But is there more at stake here? In dealing with REO properties I often perform a driveby inspection or a bpo or more. Now its not far fetched to say included in the legal part of this is that they would require me to get another license just to do this. Now it may seem funny but it was not that long ago when as a person who has gone thru the trouble of getting a realestate license could say based on my jugement or in my opinion this property has a market value of ... then they passed a law dealing with appraisers and thier license and part of the result one holding a realestate license may not use the term value unless they also hold an apraisers license. At one time you could write up a contract to buy or sell land, or write up clauses but now the law says unless you have an attorney license you cant do it -you have to have them write it up and you fill in the blanks. So just curious is this a good or bad thing?

That law you mention is not on the table anymore, it passed the General Assembly and is awaiting the Governor's signature which he has said he will sign.

The Tennessee Association of Realtors and two state home inspector groups were united in getting this law passed because we all want more competency and professionalism in the home insection industry.

In Tennessee you have to be licensed to practice law, i.e. write legal documents like contracts.

In Tennessee you have to be licensed to practice real estate, i.e. broker sales.

In Tennessee you have to be licensed to appraise properties to establish and determine value.

In Tennessee you very soon will have to be licensed to call yourself a home inspector.

I see all these laws as good deals for the industry and the consumer.

I like your disclaimer Jim ...you would not even have to say such things if it was not for all the rules and yes I know its on the kaar web site but I wanted to see what others thought - and yes thanks for your input - I have not decided if I agree with adding another law or not - for every law that's added some pervious rights or privileges are removed from the individuals hands and turned over to a governmental body --so like I said I am undecided any one else have a voice even if your not in TN? And yes I can see without laws that those who are unscrupulous will abuse a right or privilege. Maybe they might think of passing a law I can not rekey a home because I don't have a locksmith license. Or maybe use tax records for property research because I don't have a cpa license. I agree there should be uniform standards to meet but another law? And lets face it just because you have a license paid a tax to another regulatory body dose not mean the things you will do are competent or right -atty's right poor contracts all the time -appraisers get in trouble for poor appraisals -lets face it we have all had a deal killed by an appraisal that was to low and even some of the documents now on the TAR website are poorly formed and are having problems in court system -if not then they would not have to be amended so many times.

TR
What on earth is your point in all that rambling? Illinois already licenses home inspectors which is a good thing. Since a buyer has to depend on the inspectors opinion there should be some regulation to insure that the inspector has had some verifible training.

My point was just to hear what others thought on the topic -sometimes you must "spread the word" to invoke a response, but truly I think certification and standardization are enough and a law only takes away from the individuals. Granted a majority must not because the Realtor boards did suport getting this in place. But sometime its ok to be apart from the majority.

This thread has been edited by the moderator to get it back to the subject at hand, which is home inspector licensing in Tennessee.

TR Lawrence seemed to have opened the thread up in an effort to hear opinions from anyone outside of Tennessee concerning home inspector licensing in general.

Comments and discussion, even discussion in which the participants vehemently disagree, is welcome. Personal attacks on any individual or any profession in general should be avoided at the risk of having them edited and/or deleted. I started with my own post and deleted it since it seemed to have been taken the wrong way. All posts concerning my post were then deleted as well. My apologies to all who took time to respond to my post only to have their posts edited and/or deleted.

I believe my wrongfully deleted Original post was in support of licensing home inspectors. Illinois now licenses home inspectors and this seems to have reduced their numbers to the ones with training and experience. Gomer with Flashlight and clipboard is now gone.

I sent Paul a copy of his "wrongfully deleted Original post" so that he can re-post if he feels it was germane to the thread topic. I felt that it was a direct response to me and my deleted post and no longer made any sense out of context when I deleted my own post.

Let's go back to the Tennessee law, the Illinois law, and any other discussion about relevant laws in the states.

As with most states where home inspector licensing is under consideration, eventually it does become a reality. So it probably is likely that Tennessee home inspectors will become licensed and regulated, probably sooner than later.

While many believe that licensing is good overall, there are many who don't. The pros and cons continue to be debated heavily, both in individual states among home inspectors and state trade associations (such as CREIA in California and KREIA in Kentucky) and national home inspector trade associations (such as ASHI, NAHI, SPREI, NACHI, etc.)

In some cases, it provides relevant standards for home inspectors and enforcing goverment authorities. However, in the case of Pennsylvania, there is no money in the budget for enforcing authorities, so although Pennsylvania has licensing and standards per sé, there is no current enforcement, and it appears that there will be no government enforcement for the foreseeable future. So the Pennsylvania inspectors, even with licensing, are left to self-regulation, which, I believe, is not necessarily bad.

Most of the time it seems that the groups who support home inspector legislation are older, established home inspectors who are trying to keep out younger, newer inspectors, as was the case here in California a couple of years ago. ASHI and CREIA attempted to create licensing standards controlled and regulated by ASHI and CREIA (since California also does not have the money to do new things) to the exclusion of all other entities. Eventually, the bill was seen for what it was and was gutted and turned into legislation regulating check cashing businesses.

Russel,
Please explain what could be the possible downside to requiring state licensing, training requirements to regulate the home inspection field. In Illinois I have not seen any hinderance to anyone wanting to become a home inspector. The state just says that you have to meet x requirements for a license. Then you can call yourself a home inspector. There is NO downside to the end user and that is where the buck stops! Protecting the consumer is the reason for licensure! A seller or buyer should have at least some hope that the inspector really knows what he is doing as this is the single biggest purchase most people make in their lifetime.. So tell us from a Home Inspectors position what is the downside to requiring a license.

I do not see any downside at all...only an upside.

In the Tennessee scenario it's 2 Tennessee home inspector groups, the Tennessee Association of Realtors, the Tennessee Real Estate Commission, almost 100% of the General Assembly, and our Governor that is supporting this bill.

It will become law soon and proabably go into effect sometime in 2006.

I don't believe anyone wants to keep anyone out of the home inspection business (especially the younger guys; they have better eyesight ) but we do want some minimum standards for home inspectors to have to adhere to, some minimum competency levels, some continuing education provsions, AND some mechanism to enforce those standards.

I can't imagine how anyone that calls themselves a professional in the home inspection industry could not support such legislation.

As for ASHI and another group wanting to write and regulate their own standards; that really smack of the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse.

It just depends on how the legislation is set up as to whether or not there is a downside. The legislation here that CREIA and ASHI were sponsoring had lots of downsides, which is why it did not pass, why the sponsor gave up on it and allowed it to be gutted and amended.

I forget which state it was, but one of the states that instituted licensing within the past few years resulted in about 75% of the home inspectors quitting. Now on the surface, that is not necessarily bad in and of itself if those 75% were incompetent. Somehow, I don't think that's the case. I think the rigamarole (rigamaroll?) that one had to go through to get licensed caused many to quit the business. So what happened is that there are not enough home inspectors to provide what many of us see as a valuable service to the public. I'm thinking it was Louisiana, but I'm not sure. Anyway, what also happened is that since there are not enough home inspectors to meet the demand, prices for home inspections went upwards--don't necessarily dislike that, per sé. However, with a much smaller supply of home inspectors, and rising prices, people in that state are now skipping the home inspection altogether. How does that serve the public good?

I fully support licensing home inspectors. But it has to be done right. Yes, Jim, you're exactly right. ASHI and CREIA writing the standards, enforcing the standards, certifying inspectors, etc., is like the fox guarding the hen house. That's why I was against that specific legislation. Some home inspector licensing is not necessarily better than no home inspector licensing.

I write my legislative representatives here on a monthly basis seeking someone to sponsor licensing legislation again. No takers yet. Still working on them. Just sent off the April letters last weekend.

My preference would be something similar to what Massachusetts has as far as the Realtor/Home Inspector relationship goes, and something similar to what Texas has as far as standards, enforcement, etc.

My #1 preference, however, still is for the industry to take care of itself. That probably is not possible; just the mere fact that we have eight national home inspector trade associations indicates that. We need to have only one, like NAR, and then each state, each county, whatever, can have smaller chapters (CAR, SDAR, NSDCAR here).

I simply will never be a fan of government rules and regulations; but that doesn't mean that I'm not a realist. Sometimes, as Mr. Spock once said, "The needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few."

Russel,
Perhaps you might try contacting CAR's Governmental Affairs person who I am sure would be happy to help you get home inspector licensing legislation on the agenda

They weighed in on the last go-round, but they typically are not the type of organization that goes after someone else's profession, i.e., home inspectors. They tend to stick with Realtors and real estate legislation as far as their sponsorship goes. Now if something else comes up in a profession that they are interested in, then they don't mind weighing in. But apparently they, and I, believe it would be wrong of them to try to institute legislation on someone else's profession. They really do have enough to worry about with their own profession.