If you’re reading this, it is most likely that you’re from within the Commonwealth and want to become a home inspector. If so, you need to know that the state, Massachusetts, is among the 34 where the profession is regulated. The body responsible for licensure business is the Board of Registration of Home Inspectors, and particularly, the Division of Professional Licensure.
Steps to become a certified home inspector in Massachusetts:
- Familiarize Yourself With The State’s Basic Requirements
- Do The Home Inspection Course
- Participate In The Certification Exam
- Submit Your Application
Read about my journey of becoming a home inspector from cleaner.
With the home inspection profession, the state provides three kinds of licenses:
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Associate Home Inspector License
This is an apprentice’s license and the pre-requisite to becoming a certified home inspector.
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Home Inspector License
This is the main thing and will be explored mainly in this article, together with its pre-requisite.
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Reciprocal Inspector License
If you’re from Washington (state) or Connecticut and have been practicing home inspection there, this is yours to take.
As a Bay Stater, here’s how to get licensure and become a professional home inspector. Remember, you will make a two-step process – first associate, then inspector. Let’s jump in:
Familiarize Yourself with the State’s Basic Requirements
Educationally speaking, you will need to take up a 75-hour course of primary home inspection education. The course is an essential requirement for the associate’s license.
What about the experience? Massachusetts will require you to present an experience log that shows that you have done at least 25 non-mock inspections. These should have been completed under supervision.
In the record, you will include the inspection date, the property type and address, and the names of the clients.
Before you make your application as a full inspector, you will need to present evidence of having done at least 12 hours of Continuing Education. Also, you need to have done 100 non-mock inspections since you got your associate’s license.
Think about it this way – you already have the 25 for the associate’s license, and now you only need at least 75 more.
Do the Home Inspection Course
From the course list, here are the schools which the Board has approved for pre-licensing (primary) education (the 75 hours that make you an associate):
- ABC Real Estate Training Institute
- American Home Inspectors Training Institute
- AmeriSpec
- Assabet Valley
- ASHI New England
- The ASHI School
- Bristol Plymouth Regional Tech School
- Casey O’Malley Associates
- Centsable Inspection Keefe Tech
- Inspection Certification Associates
- InterNachi / Ben Gromicko
- National Institute of Building Inspectors 2
- Northern Essex Community College
- Pillar To Post
- Professional Home Inspection Institute
- Roxbury Community College
- Salem State College
- Sherman S. Price
- The Building Inspector of America
Before you present your full inspector application, take the 12 hours of CE in any of the listed institutions. Most of them are like the ones approved for primary education, with only a few added.
Participate in the Certification Exam
As a prospective associate inspector in Massachusetts, you need to complete the National Home Inspection Examination – provided by the EBPHI (Examination Board of Professional Home Inspectors). As indicated on the PSI platform (the test administrator), the standard charge is $225.
Submit Your Application
Associate License in Massachusetts
As you make the online application, ensure that you fulfill each of the following pre-licensing requirements:
- Give an application (registration) fee of $225 – payable at the end of the online registration process via credit/debit card or bank account.
- Obtain errors and omissions insurance of at least $250,000 – in the aggregate.
- Upload a copy of the experience log, showing the 25 non-mock inspections.
- Complete and sign a notarized CORI, a Criminal Offender Record Information.
- Show the certificates of completion and passing for both the primary education (75 hours) and the examination.
More of the requirements are in the application information document, so be sure to check it out.
Full Inspector License in Massachusetts
As you make the online application, ensure that you fulfill each of the following pre-licensing requirements:
- Give an application (registration) fee of $338 – payable at the end of the online registration process via credit/debit card or bank account.
- Obtain errors and omissions insurance of at least $250,000 aggregately.
- Upload a copy of the experience log, showing the 100 non-mock inspections.
- Complete and sign a notarized CORI, a Criminal Offender Record Information.
- Show the certificates of completion for Continuing Education (12 hours).
- Upload a colored, recent passport-style photo of yourself.
More of the requirements are in the application information document, so be sure to check it out.
For both licenses, the Board takes a minimum of 10 business days – a fortnight, technically – to review and approve your application. Upon approval, the card will get to your mail in between 4 and 6 weeks.
Licensure renewal (for full inspector) is biennially, and the date of renewal is on or before 31 May. Late renewal will attract a $57 fee.
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