Home Inspectors Certification Scheme - Why waste time?

An assessment centre for independent, non-RICS professionals, has been given Government approval to run the country’s first home inspector certification scheme.

Fears that there would be insufficient numbers of certified inspectors was one of the reasons for the Government’s decision to put back introduction of home information packs and to back away from requiring them to contain home condition reports.

Controversy has continued over introduction of HIPs, however, with the national Association of Estate Agents calling for the whole idea to be scrapped.

If and when they are introduced only home inspectors who are members of a certification scheme will be able to issue energy ratings and home condition reports if (voluntarily) included.

SAVA’s certification scheme is already open for business and has 75 qualified home inspectors pre-registered and about 1,300 candidates for the home inspection diploma, he said. Each home inspector will go through a range of background checks, including Police, DVLA, financial, identity and qualification checks, before then being accepted as a member of the certification scheme and coming under its strict quality monitoring regime looking at the standards of service and accuracy and reliability of the reports being produced.

The conference heard details of regional HIP pilots due to begin in November and of the Government’s absolute determination to see mandatory HIPs in place by 1 June 2007.

But reacting to the news that the first home inspector certification scheme had been approved, Shadow Local Government Secretary Caroline Spelman said the plans for introduction of HIPs were in deep trouble.

Labour has already been forced this year to scrap what was meant to be the key element of the HIPs - the home condition report. Its continuing plans for home information packs remain in disarray as the Government slowly discovers that this expensive red tape simply will not deliver the improvements that the housing market needs.

Given it's clear that the Government should abandon the whole scheme and consult afresh, rather than move ahead with the vanity project to save ministers' faces, it’s difficult to see what the appeal in training to be a home inspector will be’.