Georgia to Utah: home inspector license reciprocity

Utah began licensing home inspectors in 2026, and it did it in an unusual way. House Bill 58 of the 2025 general session created a new license classification called Private Home Inspector, defined in statute as an individual who offers services to the public and examines residential dwellings and their components to identify potential issues associated with the sale or purchase of real property. The bill took effect on 1 January 2026 and the Division of Professional Licensing opened applications and began enforcing the requirement on 1 May 2026. The classification sits inside the division's existing Building Inspector program, next to the Combination Inspector and Limited Inspector licenses held by code officials, and is overseen by the Building Inspector Licensing Board. The unusual part is what Utah asks for. There is no state examination, no state-set education requirement, no experience threshold and no trainee tier. Instead the division requires a current and active national certificate from one of three named bodies - the American Society of Home Inspectors, the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors, or the International Code Council as a Residential Combination Inspector - and two insurance policies, general liability of $500,000 and errors and omissions of $500,000, each naming the division as certificate holder. Both the certification and the insurance have to be kept current for as long as the license is held, and letting either lapse is a disciplinary matter. Licenses in this program expire on 30 November of odd years. Utah effectively outsources the competence test to the certifying bodies and keeps the consumer protection for itself in the form of mandatory insurance and disciplinary jurisdiction.

Georgia issues no home inspector license, certificate or registration, so an inspector moving here has no state credential to apply for, no examination to sit and nothing to transfer from another state. The Secretary of State's Professional Licensing Boards Division supports the 42 licensing boards housed with that agency and publishes the whole list. Under Building and Contractors it names architects and interior designers, conditioned air contractors, electrical contractors, low voltage contractors, plumbers, residential and general contractors, and utility contractors; the rest of the list runs from veterinarians, athlete agents and auctioneers through cosmetologists, foresters, geologists, funeral directors, nurses and private detectives to used motor vehicle dealers and water and wastewater treatment plant operators. Home inspection is not on it. The same page lists the professions that are licensed in Georgia by some other agency - accountancy, certified nurse aides, dentists, engineers and land surveyors, installment lenders, insurance agents, lawyers, manufactured homes, pesticide applicators, pharmacists, physicians, real estate agents, vehicle tag and title, and water well contractors - and home inspection is not on that list either, so there is no other agency to be sent to. The Georgia Administrative Code says the same thing from the rules side: its department index carries the State Construction Industry Licensing Board and the State Licensing Board for Residential and General Contractors, but no home inspector department, chapter or rule. Because Georgia holds no home inspector examination, the National Home Inspector Examination has nothing to stand in for here, and any "certified" designation an inspector advertises comes from a private trade association rather than from the state. What binds a Georgia home inspector instead is general law. The Fair Business Practices Act, O.C.G.A. sections 10-1-390 and following, exists "to protect consumers and legitimate business enterprises from unfair or deceptive practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce" and declares unfair or deceptive acts or practices in consumer transactions unlawful; it covers services bought mainly for personal, family or household purposes, and its own illustrations include passing off services as those of another and causing actual confusion or actual misunderstanding about the source, approval or certification of a service. A consumer injured by a violation may sue individually for injunctive relief and damages under section 10-1-399, after delivering a written demand for relief to the prospective defendant at least 30 days before filing; the court awards three times actual damages for an intentional violation, plus reasonable attorney's fees and expenses of litigation. The Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division enforces the Act separately whenever it finds a substantial public interest. Georgia has enacted no home inspector practice act, which means no statutory standard of care and no conflict-of-interest rule of the kind that bars inspecting a property you were paid to repair, so the written inspection agreement together with ordinary contract and negligence law sets the duty owed. Georgia does license the work on either side of an inspection: the State Licensing Board for Residential and Commercial General Contractors licenses the residential and commercial general contractors who take on building and remodeling that follows from a report; the State Construction Industry Licensing Board licenses electrical contractors, plumbers, conditioned air contractors, low voltage contractors and utility contractors, so any repair in those trades belongs to a licensee; and putting a value on the property is the work of an appraiser classified by the Georgia Real Estate Appraisers Board as State Registered, State Trainee, State Licensed, State Certified Residential or State Certified General. That appraiser board does offer classification by reciprocity to licensed and certified appraisers from every state, which is the recognition an inbound home inspector will not find anywhere in Georgia.