Moving to Maryland as a home inspector: every state's rule

Maryland licenses home inspectors statewide through the Maryland Commission of Real Estate Appraisers, Appraisal Management Companies and Home Inspectors, which sits in the Department of Labor's Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing and works under Title 16 of the Business Occupations and Professions Article and COMAR 09.36. There is one license and no junior tier: an applicant needs a high school diploma or its equivalent, 72 hours of an on-site classroom training course approved by the Commission and by a national home inspection organization, and a passing score on the National Home Inspector Examination, which PSI delivers in Baltimore, College Park, Hagerstown and Salisbury. Maryland sets no experience requirement and no supervised-inspection count, so an inbound inspector's years of practice are not what the file turns on. Before the license is issued the applicant must show general liability insurance of at least $150,000 with their own name on the certificate, and that cover has to be in place again at every renewal; there is no surety bond and no errors and omissions requirement. The Commission publishes a list of 28 states whose licensees may apply by reciprocity, which replaces the 72-hour course and the diploma evidence but not the examination, and it tells an applicant from any other state to file the original application instead. The Maryland Home Improvement Commission license that contractors hold is a separate credential under separate law and does not authorize home inspections.