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

South Carolina licenses home inspectors statewide, and the regulator is the same board that licenses residential builders and residential specialty contractors: the Residential Builders Commission at the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. Article 5 of Title 40, Chapter 59 makes the license necessary before anyone transacts home inspection business or holds out as a home inspector, and it applies to residences of no more than three floors and sixteen units. The license is personal. The Commission will not issue one to a partnership, corporation, firm or group, although a licensed inspector may inspect for a company or contract through one, and a firm in which the licensee owns less than 51 percent needs its own certificate of authorization. There is one tier and no apprentice, associate or trainee grade beneath it, so an experienced inspector arriving from another state applies for the full license directly. Code enforcement officials, licensed architects, engineers, general contractors and residential builders, and CL100 wood infestation inspectors are exempt within their own scope, but the article's conduct rules still bind them when they inspect. South Carolina requires no insurance, no surety bond and no continuing education of a licensed home inspector, which sets it apart from the builder side of the same Commission.