House Passes Study Bill for Home Inspector Licensing

Today the House passed Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5788 to study whether and in what manner the state should to license home inspectors. Problems in residential construction have been a reoccurring issue in this year’s legislature. The Senate earlier passed a version of the bill to mandate licensure. The AIA/WA was successful in ensuring that the new license would not impact architects and engineers as it came out of the Senate. Even though the vote was very strong out of the Senate (45-2) deep divisions existed within the home inspection community over the details of the licensing proposal. The House Commerce & Labor committee replaced the Senate language with a “sunrise review” study by the Department of Licensing. The DOL is to report back its findings by December 1, 2007. The issue is likely to come back in 2008.

ESSB 5788 now goes back to the Senate to vote on concurrence with the House amendments.