Michigan to Texas: home inspector license reciprocity

Texas licenses home inspectors statewide through the Texas Real Estate Commission under Chapter 1102 of the Occupations Code, and it does so in three tiers. An Apprentice Inspector is the entry level and trains under the direct supervision of a Professional Inspector. A Real Estate Inspector is the middle tier and works under a Professional Inspector's indirect supervision. A Professional Real Estate Inspector is the top tier and the only one that may inspect without being sponsored by another license holder, so it is the license an experienced inspector moving to Texas applies for; the two lower tiers are sponsorship-dependent stepping stones rather than separate destinations. TREC states that Texas has no reciprocity with any state, so an out-of-state license does not on its own shorten the process, although an applicant who has already passed the National Home Inspector Examination, or who has three years of related field experience, can skip a large part of the required coursework. Every inspector license at every tier also needs fingerprints on file with the Texas Department of Public Safety and proof of financial responsibility of $100,000 per occurrence.

Michigan 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 Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs publishes both halves of its own list and home inspection is on neither: the Bureau of Professional Licensing's occupational professions are accountancy, appraisal management companies, real estate appraisers, architects, barbers, collection agencies, cosmetology, professional engineers, hearing aid dealers, landscape architects, personnel agencies, real estate brokers and salespersons and professional surveyors, while the Bureau of Construction Codes licenses "Boiler, Electrical, Elevator, Mechanical, Plumbing, Inspector/Plan Reviewer, Residential Builder". That "Inspector/Plan Reviewer" entry is the one thing on the list an inbound home inspector is likely to misread, and it is not a home inspector license: it is the Code Official registration covering Building, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing and Fire Protection System Inspector/Plan Reviewer and Building Official, granted under Article 10 of the Skilled Trades Regulation Act, where a building official is defined as "a construction code enforcement person" and an inspector as "the individual who is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the construction of buildings, structures, or appurtenances under the state construction code". It is registered with the State Construction Code Commission, renewed every third year on evidence of code-change training, and it exists to enforce the state construction code on permitted work, not to inspect a house for a buyer before a sale. Because Michigan 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 Michigan home inspector instead is general law: the Michigan Consumer Protection Act makes unlawful, at MCL 445.903(1), unfair, unconscionable or deceptive acts in trade or commerce, expressly including representing that services have characteristics, uses or benefits they do not have, representing that services are of a standard, quality or grade they are not, failing to reveal a material fact whose omission tends to mislead a consumer who could not reasonably know it, and causing a probability of confusion as to the certification of services, which is the provision that reaches an inspector who advertises a trade-association credential as though it were a state license. Beyond that it is the written pre-inspection agreement and ordinary contract and negligence law that set the duty owed, because Michigan has enacted no statutory standard of care for home inspectors and no statute governing the content or form of an inspection report. The one place Michigan law touches this trade is the Seller Disclosure Act: the statutory Seller's Disclosure Statement at MCL 565.957 tells the buyer in capitals that the buyer "SHOULD OBTAIN PROFESSIONAL ADVICE AND INSPECTIONS OF THE PROPERTY TO MORE FULLY DETERMINE THE CONDITION OF THE PROPERTY", and warns that the seller's statement "is not a substitute for any inspections or warranties the buyer may wish to obtain" — a statute that points buyers at inspectors without regulating them. The credentials to go to instead are Michigan's construction ones: any repair, alteration or improvement work that comes out of a report belongs to a licensed residential builder or maintenance and alteration contractor under Article 24 of the Occupational Code, or to the state's licensed electrical, plumbing, mechanical, boiler and elevator trades. Radon is not a credentialed add-on here either: the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy states that radon testers and mitigators "are not licensed or regulated in Michigan" and that it has no regulatory authority over them, recommending only National Radon Proficiency Program or National Radon Safety Board certification, so an inspector who offers radon testing in Michigan should check the rules of any neighboring state before working across the line.