![['Fines have increased sharply in Nova Scotia for violations of building code and fire safety laws. Shown checking over a new home project underway in Sydney River is Cape Breton Regional Municipality building inspector Greg MacPhee.']](https://saltwire.imgix.net/inspector-619253.jpg?cs=srgb&fit=crop&h=568&w=847&dpr=1&auto=enhance%2Ccompress%2Cformat)
Are you looking for a job? You could be a home inspector – all you need is a business card.
“Nine out of 10 people that I talk to have no idea. I tell them anybody can become a home inspector, literally anybody,” said St. John’s resident Grant Noble.
Noble used to be a home inspector but he got out of the business about a year ago, partly because of the lack of regulations which he says puts home buyers at risk.
“People put a lot of trust in home inspectors, they put a lot of their money into what they’re buying … I think they take for granted that the government, or someone, is going to make sure that people can’t (take advantage of them).”
However, only Alberta and British Columbia currently require home inspectors to be licensed. Ontario is working on it.
Noble said the lack of regulations in this province “makes it sort of like the wild west,” with no set of established criteria that inspectors need to follow, no required education, and no licensing.
Sherry Gambin-Walsh, the Minister of Service NL, said in an emailed statement that regulating home inspections is not something government is considering at this time.
“However, if there are concerns from the public about a need for home inspections we are always willing to listen,” the statement said.
“Should there be a decision in the future to consider regulation there would be a number of issues and concerns to address around standards, costs, availability for rural areas and training of home inspectors.”
The minister could not be reached by press deadline to answer the question of why government does not regulate the industry.
Realtors can recommend inspectors
The lack of regulations means realtors can recommend any inspector they’d like.
When Noble decided to be a home inspector about four years ago, he took various courses, got insured, and registered with the Canadian Association of Home and Property Inspectors (CAHPI) all because he wanted to ensure he provided the best service.
He soon found out that doing a thorough inspection did not always pay off.
In one instance, he had a realtor yell at him on the phone because Noble said a roof needed to be re-shingled.
“He was getting mad at me and saying I wasn’t supposed to say that. Well, who’s supposed to say it?”
“You expect that you’re going to go out, do a good job, and word’s going to get around that you did a good job and you’re going to get more business. When it starts working the opposite way, it’s very maddening and worrisome to know that those customers are out there who could have spent the same money with you and got a good inspection but this other guy that’s hiding stuff on purpose, he’s getting all the business.”
He said if he decided to cozy up with realtors and change the way he presented his inspection reports, he’d likely have a thriving home inspection business.
“But that wasn’t acceptable to me. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night taking people’s money and doing that to them. A lot of people are.”
Noble said realtors are “playing a game with terrible rules.”
He said he realizes everyone is trying to make a living and he can see why some realtors would recommend a home inspector who might fudge some details when “nobody is telling you (that) you need to do better.”
Bill Stirling, the CEO of the NL Association of Realtors, said he’d “like to think that doesn’t happen very often.”
Mike Guihan, a long-time home inspector and past national president of CAHPI, said the issue of realtors recommending inspectors is one of many reasons the industry needs regulations.
“What the real estate board several years ago decided was, ‘OK, we’re not allowed to play favourites, we don’t want to be accused of playing favourites,’ so, they’ll pass out three business cards. OK, so who decides which cards you pass out? Well, the real estate agent. And they can justify anything – ‘Well, they’re a big company, they’ve been around for years, they do lots of inspections’ – it doesn’t mean any of them are done right.”
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Stirling said it’s true there are no rules around realtors recommending home inspectors.
“We recommend that they give people a list of three or four inspectors that are qualified and are insured and bonded and all of that sort of thing, but at the end of the day consumers are free to choose whoever they want.”
He said there’s nothing to be gained on the realtor’s part for having a quick sale of a poorly inspected property.
“It doesn’t do anybody any good … to have a deal close where there’s issues with the property that weren’t picked up through a proper inspection, because eventually those issues are going to come to light.”
Realtor, home inspector associations call for regulations
While Guihan said there’s plenty of realtors who have their client’s best interests at heart, there are also realtors who “just want to sell the bloody house so they can get paid.”
He said those realtors don’t want inspectors to find problems.
“Over the last 22 years, if I had a dollar for every time some real estate agent said to me, ‘You killed that deal’ I could probably buy myself a nice airplane trip somewhere. It’s nuts.
“How did I kill the deal? I didn’t put those rotten joists in the roof, I didn’t put those lousy shingles on the house, and I didn’t screw up the wiring in that panel, I just found it. But that’s what happens.”
Guihan said in the absence of regulations the only thing separating good inspectors from bad is their own drive to do a good job.
He said many inspectors choose to do training and actively improve, while others “go out and advertise, (and) suck up to real estate agents.”
In the end, it’s home buyers who are losing out.
He said he’s often asked to inspect homes that were previously inspected only to find a slew of problems.
In one instance, a pre-inspected home had a main carrying beam in the crawl space that was so rotten you could stick a finger through it.
Guihan wants to see licensing of home inspectors in this province, and regulations put in place so that inspectors have to “prove competency.”
Over the years, he’s met with government officials about implementing regulations.
“The most common answer I’ve received is, ‘We are not in the business of creating more regulations, we are trying to de-regulate.’ It’s not cheap to decide to licence a particular group of people — you have to establish all the standards, it takes a long time and it costs money.”
He said he’s also had politicians tell him people who’ve had a bad home inspection have recourse with the courts.
“That’s a friggin’ joke,” he said, calling it time-consuming and expensive with limited results.
Stirling said the NL Association of Realtors has also been advocating for government to regulate the home inspection industry for at least five years.
“The lack of regulation of property inspectors is a big concern of ours,” he said. “Consumers have virtually no protection and no way of knowing whether an inspector is qualified.”
He said they’ve put recommendations forward to government, and most recently they suggested that government pay attention to what’s currently happening in Ontario.
That province is working towards regulations and, Stirling said, if it works out for them it could provide a model for how it could be successfully implemented here.
Twitter: @juanitamercer_
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