Colorado to Nebraska: home inspector license reciprocity

Nebraska does not license home inspectors, but it does require them to register with the state, and that registration is mandatory rather than optional. Since January 1, 2023, sections 76-3601 to 76-3606 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes have made it unlawful to conduct a home inspection for compensation in Nebraska without first registering with the Secretary of State's Licensing Division, and a violation is a Class IV misdemeanor. The registration is an administrative filing, not a qualification: an applicant gives the name of the individual or legal entity, the address of the home office, an agent for service of process, and any national home inspection certification currently held, and files a $300 fee with a certificate of insurance showing at least $250,000 of general liability coverage that stays in force for the whole term. There is no examination, no required coursework, no experience threshold, no continuing education and no background check. National certification is disclosed if the inspector has it and is not required if the inspector does not. The registration runs two years, renewal may be filed in the 45 days before it expires, and any change to the registered information has to be reported within 45 calendar days. Because the whole scheme turns on filing rather than on qualifications, an inspector arriving with an out-of-state license is in exactly the same position as a Nebraska beginner: the license does not shorten anything, and nothing about it can be transferred. What Nebraska licenses instead sits around the edges of the job. The Department of Health and Human Services credentials asbestos, lead-based paint and radon work along with the registered environmental health specialist, so an inspector cannot bolt any of those services onto a home inspection without the matching credential, and the Department of Labor runs a separate statewide contractor registration tied to workers' compensation coverage that reaches anyone who also does work on someone else's real property.

Colorado issues no home inspector license, certificate or registration. The Division of Professions and Occupations publishes the full list of occupational credentials the state does issue, covering certified public accountants and accounting firms; architects, professional engineers, land surveyors and their interns; barbers, cosmetologists, estheticians, hair stylists, nail technicians and shops; combative sports; electrical apprentices, residential wiremen, journeyman electricians, master electricians, photovoltaic installers and electrical contractors; landscape architects; nontransplant tissue banks; outfitters; passenger tramways; apprentice, residential, journeyworker and master plumbers and plumbing contractors; and radon measurement and mitigation professionals. Home inspection is not on that list. The General Assembly looked at changing this in 2017: Senate Bill 17-038 would have made it unlawful to act as a home inspector without first registering with the Department of Regulatory Agencies, but the Senate Finance Committee postponed the bill indefinitely on February 9, 2017 and no home inspector practice act has been enacted since. An inspector arriving from another state therefore has no Colorado credential to apply for, no examination to sit and nothing to transfer, and because Colorado holds no home inspector examination the National Home Inspector Examination has nothing to stand in for here; any "certified" designation an inspector advertises comes from a private trade association rather than from the state. What governs the work instead is general law plus the licenses that overlap it: the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, C.R.S. sections 6-1-101 and following, makes it a deceptive trade practice to knowingly or recklessly misrepresent the characteristics, uses or benefits of a service or to represent that a service is of a standard or quality it is not, and gives an injured consumer a civil action; the written inspection agreement and ordinary contract and negligence law set the duty owed, because Colorado has enacted no statutory standard of care for home inspectors; and since July 1, 2022 anyone conducting radon measurement or radon mitigation in Colorado must hold a radon measurement or radon mitigation professional license from the division under the Radon Measurement and Mitigation Licensing Act, so an inspector cannot add a radon test to the job without one. Any electrical or plumbing repair that comes out of a report has to be done by a Colorado-licensed electrician or plumber, and the one place Colorado law names this trade at all is section 12-10-218, which counts "home inspection services" as a settlement service and regulates the real estate broker's affiliated business arrangements, disclosures and referral fees rather than the inspector.