NY State DOS/DOL Home Inspection Advisory Council at the Smith Office Building in Albany.

The Third home Inspection Advisory Council Meeting.

Next Meeting- Is scheduled for May 2, 2007 in Albany

They reported that progress has been made by the sub-committees responsible for formulation of a NY State Home Inspectors COE and SOP.

Draft copies are being submitted to Legal for evaluation. The draft will then be returned to the Advisory Group for review prior to submission to the Secretary of State. After the Secretary approves the document(s), there will be a window of opportunity for comments from the public. Then, after considering public comment, final "tweaking" of the document will be made through the Council, Legal and the Secretary. After that procedure, the Secretary will have the final form made official, published, and it will become our "Guiding Light" here in New York State.

Regarding Continuing Education - The group is fully cognizant that no firm guidelines for CE Program Material have yet been issued. They did advise however that anyone planning to instruct get the correct form from their website and submit the instructors credentials.

Acknowledging that inspectors who were among the first group to be issued licenses (late Dec 05 and Jan 06) are now into the 2nd month of the 2nd year of their 2 year license term, and that it may take a few more months for the Department and the Educational Providers to get ramped up and ready, a motion was made by the Council that this group of inspectors not have to meet the full 24 hours of CE. Provided it can be approved by both Legal and the Secretary, this initially licensed group of inspectors may be allowed to have only 3 NYS Approved CE Hours. (It had already been accepted that the inspectors in the first 2 years of their licensing would probably only need 12 hours)

For those planning on providing CE. There will be NO APPROVALS for distance learning. All CE, and the associated test, will have to be in person.

A period of public comment was held. Concern was expressed regarding:
1. unlicensed inspectors 2. lack of displayed license number in advertisements 3. PEs' who are doing HI as primary business, advertising as HI Service, without a HI License. ( My interpretation : The PEs' are supposed to do HI only incidental to their PE business - example: they inspect while doing an engineering evaluation for a possible addition - if they actually advertise as doing HI, they must have a HI License) 4. Schools doing a dis-service to the public by teaching to the test 5. Teachers who are not teaching, just running some type of visual aid (they may not even be in the room) and calling it as meeting requirement 6. Field experience module not being a real inspection of an actual property.
The council indicated the publics input would be taken under advisement and consideration for discussion.

. To date there are 1,355 home inspector licenses issued, 101 are architects or engineers, 833 were licensed under the grandparenting provisions and 421 have been licensed by completing the madated training since inception in January 2006.