Steve Payne
Ontario government to regulate home inspectors
Canadian ContractorThe Ontario Association of Home Inspectors (OAHI) applauds the "welcoming news"
The Ontario government is going to consult this fall with the home inspection industry – and apparently with home improvement industry consumer confidence builder Mike Holmes – as it moves to establish minimum qualifications for people who hang out their shingle as inspectors. A recent announcement from Margaret Best, minister of consumer services said that her ministry will, after the consultation, establish minimum qualifications for the trade.
Currently, there is only one group that has organized home inspectors in the province: the Ontario Association of Home Inspectors (OAHI). It applauded the move:
“The Ontario Ministry of Consumer Services announced today that they would be pursuing consultation on minimum qualifications for Home Inspectors,” OAHI said. “This is welcoming news for the Ontario Association of Home Inspectors (OAHI). OAHI continues to be the only self-regulating home inspection organization in Ontario. Our effort for consumer protection and for setting standards through the Member Qualifications System is again being recognized. OAHI members chose to be part of a regulatory (Ontario Association of Home Inspectors Act, 1994), as well as a member organization with open membership.”
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Currently, there is only one group that has organized home inspectors in the province: the Ontario Association of Home Inspectors (OAHI). It applauded the move: NOT TRUE THERE ARE OTHER ORGANIZATIONS THAT ORGANIZED HOME INSPECTORS IN ONTARIO !!
This report is highly misleading. OAHI is not the only association that organises Home Inspectors in Ontario. There is the Ontario Association of Certified Home Inspectors, Professional Home and Property Inspectors of Canada, The Canadian National Association of Certified Home Inspectors, not to mention International Associations that do the same, but have multiple Ontario Home Inspectors, this includes the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors, and the American Society of Home Inspectors. What is important is that members of the public who want to use a home inspector realise that it is the level of education, and the fact that a Home Inspector actually belongs to an Association, that has a recognised standard of practice that is important.
And while Mr Holmes may be a popular figure on TV, and is seen frequently to complain about Home Inspectors, one should be mind full of the fact that he is a builder, and if builders did their jobs right in the first place, there would be less need for Home Inspectors. Maybe Mike Holmes would be better placed fighting for more stringent and better policed Building Codes?
OAHI has less than 40% of all Home Inspectors, who are members of Associations, as members. The problem for the Public, is not a Home Inspector who is a member of a recognised Association with a disciplinary procedure, but those inspectors who don’t even bother to join an association and therefore aren’t held accountable to a Standard of Practice or Code of Ethics.
Another problem for the public is the fact that the Public are largely uneducated in respect to what a Home Inspection entails, and they are led to a Home Inspector, usually, through their realtor.
If the public needs to understand what they should expect for m a Home Inspectors they should first go to the web-sites of the Associations that have Home Inspection Membership and get the Inspector who is best educated, not the one who is friends or relatives of the very person who stands to make 2.5-5% of the house price when it sells!
My son is keenly interested in taking up home inspection as hid subject in his B- school in California ( Freedom Business School ) . I wonder how his carer will be heading with all these new laws and regulations on home inspectors ? I’m a little worried too.
Good afternoon:
From all the info I have been sorting through, I have yet to find a definitive answer to are Home Inspectors licensed and regulated in the province of Ontario? If so, whom licenses them and regulates them?
Thanks for your time.
Kath
It is my understanding (to be corrected if necessary) that, in Ontario at least, Home Inspectors (OAHI)are a self-regulatory group who have their own standards of competency such as ‘Candidate’, “New Associate’, and ‘Registered Home Inspector’. I had a personal experience a few years ago when listing my home for sale when a clearly incompetent Home Inspector…a member in good standing of the association no less!….produced some very erroneous findings regarding my home. I discovered that there is really no one to whom one can lodge a third party complaint; I had to go through their own self-regulatory process.CLICK HERE I found it very unsatisfactory and somewhat unsettling that these inspectors have so much influence yet have questionable levels of training and no third party supervision.
Kathleen, Home Inspectors are not licensed in Ontario. Some Inspectors in some jurisdictions may have their businesses licensed in the same way a food-cart has it’s business licensed, but that’s it. The Majority of the Home Inspection Association are working with the Ontario Government to introduce licensing. We are led to believe that an announcement is likely to be made in the Spring of 2016.
All I have to say is of they let the OAHI regulate Ontario that is the worst thing possible! I have been doing home inspection for almost 10 years and have never seen one that’s part of the OAHI and has there RHI actually look at everything and do the job there supposed to! So why not have an actual established company represent Ontario, like Internachi for example