November has arrived, the World Series is done, NFL Football is halfway over, and the extended Holiday season is just around the corner.  Before you know it, Thanksgiving Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter solstice, Christmas and New Year’s will be upon us, affording each of us at least one tradition to celebrate.

The Inspector Committee met on October 7 at the Texas Real Estate Commission.  Many of the items before the committee were proposed at the July meeting.  The Committee received public comments on the proposed changes.  The Committee considered those comments, and the proposals moved forward as written.  The most notable changes in the rules are those to the pre-licensure for home inspectors in Texas.  The new process cuts the number of hours required approximately in half for the most utilize

October marks six months since I began with the Commission.  I am grateful for the warm welcome and generosity shown to me by our staff team, our policymakers and our license holders.

In August the Commission met for its regular quarterly meeting, and the agenda was far from typical!  We said a special thanks to Mr. Brad Philips who has served for twelve years on the Inspector Advisory Committee, with two terms as its Chair. The majority of the lengthy meeting was filled with fiscal year-end updates on a variety of matters that are a result of the 2019 legislative session, and much of which needed to be accomplished before September 1st or by January 1st. 

August 31 marked the end of our fiscal year, and a lot has happened in this last year. Since September 2018, the agency has gone through Sunset review, a legislative session, and changes in the leadership team.

August is here with all of its heat, and it’s the last month of the fiscal year for the Agency.  August also means both the Commission and Board will have their regularly scheduled meetings this month and that the agendas will be busy –as they always are after a legislative session.

The Inspector Committee met on July 15 for its quarterly meeting.  There was a lot on the agenda, as this has been a busy year in our industry.  The Standards of Practice Subcommittee is still in the review process and asked the full committee for direction on whether to keep the standards more general or to get specific on a multitude of items.  The consensus was to keep them general overall but to update the current standards to meet some newer criteria.  The Education Subcommittee has been

The future of the Plumbing Board has been on the minds of many inspectors since the end of the legislative session. As a result of action taken by Governor Abbott, the Plumbing Board will continue until 2021; please be sure to see our article on this to get all the information you need.

This month we published two articles that I thought would be helpful to share with you that reflect some of the required changes outlined in the final report from the agency’s sunset review process.

The 2019 Legislative Session is finished. While there was no legislative action that specifically relates to the regulation of inspectors, the Agency Sunset Bill passed, which deals directly with the regulatory authority of this Agency. Several other bills that impact the licensing authority of all regulatory agencies also passed. The Agency is determining what rules need to be recommended, some of which will likely come before the Inspector Committee at its July 15 meeting.