Michigan 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.

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.