I am writing as a Virginia licensed home inspector in opposition to SB 267.  If passed, this legislation will dramatically increase a home inspector's liability by making inspectors liable for items that exceed the American Society of Home Inspectors Standard of Practice, for issues reaching beyond our intended scope and purpose.   As a Certified Home Inspector with the American Society of Home Inspectors, I subscribe to the ASHI Standard of Practice.  Home inspectors are generalists tasked with identifying visually observable defects and inoperative systems by use of normal operating controls.  Our mission has never been to perform technically exhaustive inspections, destructive testing, or to estimate the adequacy of or the estimated remaining life expectancy of any system or component. The inspection, which is a visual inspection, includes readily accessible areas and components.  It is out of the scope of our Standard of Practice to perform any destructive testing to ascertain if a problem exists.  Additionally, Inspectors are restricted by home sellers as sellers do not want their properties damaged by inspectors looking for potential problems.  Inspectors are also restricted by their liability insurance policies from performing destructive testing and we stand the chance of loosing our insurance coverage if we do.   

Licensed, qualified home inspectors provide a valuable service to the first time and experienced homebuyer.  Inspectors possess a general knowledge of homes and their components and provide an affordable consulting service and general knowledge base to the layperson buyer.  This service provides the homebuyer with the information necessary to make and educated purchasing decision.  This legislation will likely reduce the number of qualified home inspectors willing to perform inspections and in turn, will likely result in higher inspection fees for homebuyers, neither of which are in the best interest of the home buying public.