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

Oregon certifies home inspectors statewide through the Construction Contractors Board, the same agency that licenses contractors, and the credential is called the Oregon Certified Home Inspector or OCHI. Anyone who advertises, bids or performs a residential inspection covering two or more of the listed systems must hold it. The certification comes in two halves and both are needed before you can work. The first is personal: 20 qualifying points of experience and education, a passing score on the National Home Inspector Examination and a $150 application. The second is the part that surprises inbound inspectors: under ORS 701.445 a certified inspector must also be an owner or an employee of a business that holds a CCB contractor license, and the certificate does nothing until the license holder files an OCHI Change form linking it to an active license. If you join an existing inspection firm that license is already in place; if you intend to work for yourself you must obtain a CCB license of your own, most often the Home Inspector Services Contractor endorsement, which is limited to home inspection work and carries a $15,000 surety bond and general liability insurance of at least $100,000 per occurrence. Oregon publishes no reciprocity and no endorsement route for an out-of-state home inspector license, so an experienced inspector moving here files the ordinary application; what does travel is the national examination and the years of inspection work behind it.