New Home Inspector Regulations Will Take Effect in Kansas
New home inspector regulations will take effect in Kansas in January next year.
Starting January 1, before house inspectors can carry out their home inspection tasks, they need to first register with the Kansas Home Inspector Registration Board and increase their liability limit to $2,000 or higher. They must also comply with educational requirements and residential inspection standards.
According to members of the board, they surveyed house inspectors across the state before they created regulations. They said that after Kansas lawmakers approved the Home Inspection Certification and Financial Responsibility Act, they worked with house inspectors to develop residential inspection standards and continuing education requirements.
They conducted public meetings in Topeka, Kansas City and Wichita to talk with homebuyers, real estate agents and house inspectors and obtain inspection input.
To help homeowners and prospective homebuyers, board members also developed a set of detailed home inspection guidelines so that clients would know what are done during inspections, which parts are inspected and which parts are not.
Despite the opposition of some inspectors to the new home inspector regulations, a lot of house inspectors welcomed the new registration and liability rules. They understood the rationale behind the registration program, which is to make house inspection a more respected profession.
With registration, certification and continuing education, incompetent house inspectors will be prevented from practicing, thereby reducing the number of people destroying the image of house inspectors.
According to registration advocates, the profession of house inspection should be regulated because it is one of the most crucial parts of home buying and homeownership. Buying a home entails large amounts of money, credit records, families and emotional investments, so the persons inspecting the homes to be purchased should be able to describe the real conditions of the properties and identify potential problems.
If house inspectors fail to see major problems in the properties, buyers would be buying homes that they must repair at high costs within months of their purchases or immediately after their move-in.
For prospective homebuyers looking for house inspectors to hire, they need to check not only state certification, but also membership with reputable state and national house inspection associations, such as the American Society of Home Inspectors.
House inspectors with background in home construction are oftentimes preferred because they know how things are put together, but homebuyers also need to ensure that the chosen home inspector does not identify defects and then volunteer his contracting service to resolve the problems.
