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Michigan Home Inspectors Licensing Bill
The main debate of the year 2005 in the Michigan home inspection industry was whether
home inspectors should be licensed or not. The debate is still ongoing.
The representative of the 42nd district, Frank Accavetti, Jr. has introduced
a house bill for licensing home inspectors in the State of Michigan (House Bill No.5587).
This is not a new bill but, a revision of a previous bill that was introduced several
years ago and never passed into a law.
Whether home inspectors should be licensed or not is controversial. Amongst themselves
home inspectors are divided on this issue. We would like to know what is the
Michigan consumer position on this issue as well as other related professional groups.
Interested readers may send comments regarding this issue by completing the bottom text box
of the form in the Contact Inspector page of this website.
Pros and cons:
At first look, the only effect licensing home inspectors will have is to protect the consumer.
As consumers, we think first about protection. If there is no protection and no competition
in a field of business consumers can be abused or mislead. However, there is very
strong competition in the home inspection business.
Licensing regulation is also meant to protect a business. On the same token,
a business cannot function without proper protection. Without a business to provide
a service the consumer cannot benefit from that service.
It is easy to see that legislators have to walk a very delicate path if they decide
to establish regulation in a field of business, because it has to benefit and
protect both parties in the same time.
Licensing home inspectors, as for any other occupation, comes as a package
comprising a Licensing Board and an Enforcement Infrastructure. This means money,
and money comes only from the taxpayer - consumer and business alike.
With licensing, minimum standards of practice will be set for home inspectors.
This will ensure that consumers receive at least that basic service set as minimum.
The danger is that many home inspectors will have to lower the quality of their service
to the level of low quality discounters in order to face the expenses and remain in
business, because now, everybody is licensed, hence we all have the same credentials.
This has happened in other fields after licensing. It also happened in other states
where licensing was introduced for home inspectors.
Licensing will protect consumers from overnight qualified home inspectors.
There are such people and the consumer cannot identify them easily, hence many
end up paying without getting a true service. Unfortunately this is the only positive
licensing aspect for the consumer in need of a home inspection, and will eliminate
about 5% of the total inspections performed in the state of Michigan.
It is my believe that licensing home inspectors in Michigan will not bring
a better service for most consumers, but a lesser quality service instead.
There will be more paperwork involved, hence the cost to consumer will increase.
The consumer will still have to do the usual homework to select a home inspector
- hiring any licensed home inspector will not insure a quality home inspection.
Simply asking the question "are you licensed?" will not be sufficient
to find the experienced, trustworthy home inspector.
Another fact that will stand against quality home inspections after licensing
is the lack of proper educational infrastructure for home inspection as a profession.
The 2 to 6 day home inspection schools can barely teach the home inspection procedure
and they give the students a false feeling of knowing. There could be nothing more
dangerous for a home buyer then a 6 day trained home inspector.
There are home inspectors organizations such as NACHI that very
aggressively
push for licensing. This is only because they have a difficult time competing
in the field with ASHI home inspectors who are far better qualified.
Licensing will somehow bring their members to the same qualification level in the eye of the public.
The truly qualified home inspectors active in the field today have at least
10 years of construction or remodeling experience plus inspection training and
extensive observations of aging and performance of structures. How can a piece of paper
called License replace all that training and experience?
There are close to 1,000 people claiming to be home inspectors in the
State of Michigan - only 90 of them managed to obtain ASHI accreditation.
There are sound requirements to obtain ASHI accreditation,
plus continuing education to maintain it.
Will the State of Michigan impose the same requirements for licensing?
As I saw the draft of the licensing bill: Not by far.
