|
In 1971, when I began a new career in real estate in Phoenix, there were three men who came to Phoenix from California that loosely called themselves "home inspectors." They would walk around the inside and outside of a home with the customer and give a verbal "thumbs up or thumbs down" to the house as they left. These men charged about $100.00 for their assessment, and it didn't take long for the real estate community in Phoenix to realize that they didn't want one of those "terrible home inspectors" to nix their deal with a "thumbs down." There were no written reports, no inspection contracts, and no requirement to do any type of inspections other than for termites, written into the two page AAR Standard Purchase Contract.
In 1985, there were no full time home inspectors in AZ that I knew of. The first organized company with a full time home inspector, was Inspection Specialists, my company, starting in 1985 in Tucson, Arizona.
A.S.H.I (The American Society of Home Inspectors, Inc.) was primarily an East coast based Professional Society of home inspectors. They were the first association of home inspectors to adopt a very strict Code of Ethics and a Standard of Professional practice. To be considered a "Candidate" member a home inspector had to perform 250 inspections that were checked to meet the National Professional Standard of Practice. I became the second ASHI member in the state of Arizona in 1986.
The National Association of Realtors mandated that their state chapters initiate the process of licensing home inspectors in every state in 1997. This information came to me as I served on the International ASHI Board of Directors. Shortly thereafter, my State Chapter of ASHI asked me to take the bull by the horns, and I wrote a proposed home inspection bill for the licensing of home inspectors in AZ. This bill began the process of writing our current AZ Home Inspectors Licensing Bill. On May 1, 2002 all home inspectors in Arizona were required to be certified by the State of AZ. This certification required a back ground check with fingerprints, passage of the Home Inspectors National Exam, 30 parallel inspections and 80 hours of approved education.
The "profession" of home inspection is very complicated. Determining the condition of the major systems of a home is a difficult and daunting task. There are over 2,000 components in a home, manufactured by as many as 400 different manufactures, all with their own specific installation requirements. There are several Municipal Building Codes, Contractor Standards of Professional Practice and Industry Standards that home inspectors are expected to know. There are also National and State Report Writing Standards of Practice. Inspectors are asked to risk their lives entering crawl spaces, attics, closets, climbing tall ladders and walking steeply pitched roofs. Inspectors need to be proficient in environmental conditions, structural anomalies, fire protection systems and more....They are confronted by dogs, cats, snakes spiders and occasionally critters such as Mountain Lions, raccoon or worse. They are asked to take on the liability of homes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars...sometimes millions, for a very low fee, and they do it in the rain, the heat, the snow, the sleet and the ice, even on birthdays and holidays.
God bless every home inspector. The next time you meet one, give him or her a nice pat on the back.
Wishing you all the best in 2015
Allen Blaker, ACI
|
