Home Inspectors vs. Code

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while! We have been so busy this past year. Every month of 2024 set new records for home inspections.

New Hampshirites can certainly claim that we live in a fascinating state. The New Hampshire state motto is of course “Live Free or Die.” People that live here are often very proud of the lack of oversight we have in this state.

New Hampshire has approximately 235 towns and cities all told. I have considered becoming a building inspector several times, and I was made privy to a statistic recently that didn’t surprise me. Only about 74 of the New Hampshire towns and cities even have a Building Inspector. That leaves approximately 161 towns without any oversight whatsoever.

I have overseen 203k renovation projects in towns with no building inspectors.

In at least one instance (I’ll omit mentioning the town in question), we were told that we could do anything we wanted to do to the home except for changing the color of the home.

After finding that out, I informed the contractor that we will be doing everything to code anyway, considering that I have to answer to HUD.

This is one of the realities of living in this state.

How does this pertain to home inspections?

Per our licenses, home inspectors are not allowed / authorized to enforce codes during home inspections.

Sometimes this leads to a situation after a home inspection where a contractor chastises the inspection report and says that the home inspector was negligent by NOT enforcing the codes.

As previously stated, we can’t enforce the codes. Our main mandate is the safety of our clients in their home.

A great example of this is GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) protection on outlets in kitchens and bathrooms. Again, we can’t enforce the codes, which clearly necessitate the need for GFCI protection in those locations, but we can express the need for safety in those locations. And how do you make it safer? GFCI protection.

So the bottom line is, we can’t enforce code, but we can enforce safety.

At First Choice, the safety of our clients is paramount!

Mike McCarty
First Choice Home Inspection