Reviewing home inspection service standards: strengths, gaps and a verdict

What to take away

This article covers business operations for inspection firms. It is not engineering, environmental, licensing, tax or legal advice.

Confirm scope and reporting duties with your state licensing board. Consult a licensed professional engineer or certified industrial hygienist on any specific property condition.

The standards worth judging, by name

InterNACHI Standards of Practice. The International Association of Certified Home Inspectors publishes a residential standard that most member inspectors adopt as their contract scope.

It lists the systems inspected, the systems excluded, and the reporting duty for each. Its strength is specificity. A roof inspection means the covering, drainage, flashing and penetrations, not the structural framing underneath.

ASHI Standard of Practice. The American Society of Home Inspectors publishes a parallel standard, and it is the one many state boards copied when they wrote licensing rules. Its strength is restraint. It defines the inspection as a visual, non-invasive survey and says so plainly, which protects the inspector when a buyer expects a prediction.

State licensing board rules. Roughly half the states license home inspectors, and those boards set the minimum standard, the required insurance, and the complaint process. Check your own board. The state floor and the association standard are not the same document.

Versions reviewed. Each standard carries its own revision date, and that date is the citation. InterNACHI prints the date on its Residential Standards of Practice page. ASHI prints one on its Standard of Practice page. State rules are cited by rule number and effective date on the board site.

Only the state board can revoke a license. Neither association standard sets a fee or a turnaround.

EPA radon guidance. The EPA guide for buyers and sellers covers testing conditions and mitigation referrals. It sits outside the inspection standards, which is why radon often falls through the scope gap.

FTC review rules. The FTC guide on soliciting and paying for reviews governs how you ask for testimonials. Ask every client, including the unhappy ones. Never tie a gift to a positive rating.

IRS record rules. The IRS guidance on business records applies to your job files, invoices and tool receipts. Your reporting standard says nothing about how long to keep them.

Criteria used to judge these standards

Three tests decide the grade in this review.

Every standard is judged on those three, not against the others. The table above carries the scores.

Strengths: what each standard does well

Scope clarity comes from InterNACHI, dispute protection from ASHI, and enforcement from the state board.

They draw a line around the job. A written scope answers the client who asks why the crawlspace was not entered. It also explains why the report says "not visible" instead of "defective." An inspector who follows InterNACHI or ASHI can point to that scope.

They protect the inspector in a dispute. A report that names the limitation in the same sentence as the finding is harder to attack than one that just says "roof: fair."

They travel. If you expand across state lines, an association standard gives you one reporting format to carry into the next market while you learn the local board rules.

Gaps: what each standard leaves to you

The association standards are silent on the same four business items.

No standard sets your fee, your turnaround, or your report length. Those are business decisions, and they belong in your own written policy. If you have not written one, see how service quality gets defined for owners before you set a promise you cannot keep.

No standard covers ancillary services. Radon, mold, sewer scope and thermal imaging are separate certifications with separate scopes. A client who buys a bundle expects the report to say which one produced which finding.

No standard tells you how to price a package. Bundling a radon test into a standard inspection changes your cost per job, and the packaging decisions are yours to make.

No standard addresses the complaint call. The board process exists, but the first ten minutes after a buyer calls about a missed defect are pure operations.

The verdict: adopt the standard, write the policy

The verdict: follow the association standard, then write a one-page firm policy for everything the standard does not cover.

That policy is what your staff actually use. The standard is what your contract cites.

A worked example

An inspector in a mid-size metro runs InterNACHI scope, charges a flat fee, and delivers reports the same evening. A buyer calls three weeks after closing about a slow drain the report called "functional at time of inspection."

The standard covers the inspector: the drain was visible and working on the day. The firm policy is what is missing.

A workable line reads: "Re-inspection requests get a written reply within one business day." "The re-inspection fee is the standard trip charge printed on the invoice." "Complaint calls go to the owner, not the scheduler."

Write those three answers down once, and the next call takes ten minutes instead of three days. The business plan structure is where that policy lives, next to your fee schedule and your insurance certificates.

Common questions

Do I need to follow InterNACHI if my state licenses inspectors?

Your state board sets the legal minimum. InterNACHI and ASHI usually go further. Most inspectors adopt one as their contract scope because it is more specific than the state rule.

Are the standards enforceable?

The state board can discipline a licensed inspector. The association can suspend a member. Neither one enforces your fee, your turnaround, or your customer service, which is why those go in your own policy.

What about radon and mold findings?

Those sit outside the inspection standards. Name the EPA, your state radon program, or a certified industrial hygienist as the authority. Keep the testing scope separate from the visual inspection scope.