Inspections Take Off In New Zealand

[hausdok]

As a result of plenty of problems with new homes in New Zealand, the home inspection business there is flourishing. Since the government has refused to regulate inspectors and require licensing there, the profession has opted to regulate itself. A new association is forming and nationwide standards of practice and a code of ethics are being developed.

To read more, click here.

And there's more here.

[Inspectorjoe]

"At a meeting in Paremata last week, 28 inspectors, some representing companies with up to 200 inspectors ......."

Companies with up to 200 inspectors? Holy cow! I wonder what what the heck kind of business model they are following. I sure hope that it doesn't catch on here.

[grommity]

Hi, I am near to the end of gaining my Diploma in Home Inspection.

I live in the UK but want to work abroad, ideally NZ.

Does anybody have any info for me ???????/

Thanks

[ozofprev]

Hi Russell, welcome.

I was going to suggest the links that Mike provided in the initial post to this thread, but I see that those links are no longer active. Perhaps someone remembers what they contained?

What sort of home inspection training do you get in the UK?

(I would not mind living in New Zealand.)

[grommity]

Hi, Its a 7 module training course with an exam after each module.

Then you have to take whats called an ABBE exam which gives you your Diploma, and also submit a Portfolio which must contain 10 completed Home Condition Reports ( HCR's) and 10 Energy Performance Certificates ( EPC's).

There is a lot of law and contracts, housing defects , Condition Ratings etc etc

[hausdok]

Hi Russell,

Sorry it's taken so long to get back with you on this thread, but I was out of the office all day. Home Inspection in New Zealand and Australia is, in a lot of ways, similar to home inspections here in the U.S. However, unlike American inspectors who open up service panels to inspect the interiors, Australian inspectors aren't permitted to do that. I don't know whether inspectors in New Zealand are permitted to do that.

The report format being usedin both countries is essentially the same, though, and some Aussie and Kiwi inspectors actually use inspection programs they've purchased from US and Canadian companies.

Here are some good sources for more information:

For the New Zealand Institute of Inspectors, click here.

For the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors, click here.

For the Australians Standards Institute (Aussie inspectors have a national standard and code of ethics) click here. You'll be interested in getting a copy of Australian Standard 4349.1-1995. I bought mine over the internet for about $25 U.S. about 5 years ago.

In Australia, Central Queensland University has some distance learning courses for building surveyors and you might be able to get some credit for the training you went through in the UK in preparation for the HIPS debacle. You'll be interested in CA33, the Bachelor of Bulding Surveying degree, and CA 34, the Associate of Building Surveying degree. CA 34 used to be called the Associate in Home Inspection degree. Of course, you don't have to get either of these under your belt to hang out a shingle down there, as long as you meet any local requirements for licensing, but these are some pretty impressive courses.

Another association, in Australia that you can look into is the Association of Building Consultants.

Hope this helps. By the way, since construction in New Zealand is closer to what we do here than what you have in the UK, you should probably check out some of the free downloads in our TIJ library (The US Army manuals are pretty good) and don't miss this thread which is a bunch of manuals from a New Zealand construction education site.

Hope this helps to get you started.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[grommity]

Hi Mike,

Thats plenty of info to look at.

Thanks very much for your help.

Cheers for now

Russ.