Jerry, we are on the same page... except part of the NC requirements



NC does not allow any upgrade recommendations in the summary.
They allow us to make the statement "GFCI's missing" only with no recommendation for anything period in the summary. The body of the report can recommend anything we want to.


The next NC rule is slated (unless changed at next meeting) to have the words Repair: or Investigate:
in front of each summary item.

The agents and sellers will only have to attempt to address the "Repair:" items.



The problem with safety and upgrade recommendations is simply this:
NC has found the majority of inspectors to be incapable of producing a proper inspection and report. To ADD ON the responsibility of reporting ALL safety issues as well and NOT missing any will cause more legal issues, complaints and investigations than they already have. Note: don't even think NC is the only state with this problem, its in all states, just as with all professions.


BUT, our job and ethical responsibility is to at least report what we can based on our knowledge and put it in the summary since a summary is required and possibly the only part actually studied by the buyer.


The NC HI board is under the department of insurance.
Here is a quote from the website:

The North Carolina Home Inspector Licensure Board is chartered to safeguard the public health, safety, and welfare - protect the public from being harmed by unqualified persons by regulating the use of the title "Licensed Home Inspector" and by providing for the licensure and regulation of those who perform home inspections for compensation.


Due to the presence of the word "safety" in this statement is one of the reasons the new rules are now being being tweaked. They just can't limit our safety reporting when they have promised the public the above statement.

The task now is to figure out how to do this and still allow some real estate to be sold while keeping the HI's out of court.

I have submitted a simple plan to NC and hope it gets included in the next round of decisions.