The TREC Commissioners met on August 10 via teleconference.  There were two main items from the IAC that were before the Commissioners at this meeting.  The first was the final approval of the new pre-licensure education rules to establish standard education modules to establish some much needed consistency in the education required to become a licensed inspector.  These new rules will go into effect in March of 2021.  There will be a grace period for anyone taking education as required under the current rule to prevent anyone from having to retake courses to complete their requirements.  These newly adopted rules streamline the path to become an inspector by removing redundancies in the requirements.  The amount of hours needed to become a professional inspector under the substitute experience pathway have been reduced substantially, and the content of the courses for all license types has been fine tuned to provide better overall education for the licensee by the time they are licensed and get out in the field.  This has been a very long and tedious process, and I want to thank the Education Subcommittee, staff, public members, colleagues, and everyone else that has put in countless hours of time on this.  I believe that the new process will result in a better quality licensee to the benefit of protecting consumers and our industry.   

The other inspector-related item before the Commissioners was the newly proposed Consumer Protection Notice.  The Committee recommended adding verbiage to the existing notice, which is designed to inform consumers that inspectors are required to carry E&O, but also that inspectors do have the ability to limit their liabilities within their agreements to consumers.  This has also been something that has been before the IAC for quite some time.  With the assistance of staff and Commissioner Turner, we came up with what we all believe to be the best way to inform the consumer of their rights as it relates to TREC licensees, insurance requirements, and limits of liability.  This notice will now be up for public comment for the next few months  The possible final approval of the notice will be at the November Commissioner’s meeting.  Pending approval, the new notice would take the place of the old one that all licensees must currently display in their place of business and their website.  We are already working with staff to ensure that the form will be updated within the current place that it is, so that licensees will not have to have modifications made to the links that they already have on their websites.

The next meeting of the Inspector Advisory Committee will be on October 12^th at 10am.  This will also likely be a teleconference meeting as well.  All license holders and the public are encouraged to attend.