Of licensing home inspectors in Rhode Island, Ukura says, “It would make it so people are held accountable.”

A state law requiring home inspectors to be licensed was supposed to take effect in 2001, but the state has yet to finance and implement the law, leaving home inspector licensing in Rhode Island in a state of limbo.

Because a home purchase is the largest single investment most people ever make, buyers are usually advised to include a home inspection contingency in any offer to purchase real estate.

An honest, competent inspector will not only point out immediate problems, but will give buyers information about routine repair and maintenance issues that will be important to plan for down the road.

In Rhode Island, the current situation allows anyone to offer their services as a home inspector, no matter how little knowledge or experience he or she may have in home construction and repair.

And buyers who have problems with home inspectors often have nowhere to turn but court.

George Whalen is the executive director of the Rhode Island Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board, which would oversee the licensing of home inspectors. He said that the state planned last year to actually set aside money for this purpose, but the state budget crisis trumped those intentions, and once again there is no money to begin the new licensing program.

“I really thought we would get it done this year,” he said. Whalen remembered that in the late 1990s officials from Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts held talks about home inspector licensing with the goal of implementing similar regulations and criteria for inspectors. “Massachusetts was the first to get it off the ground, and Connecticut got it done,” he said. “But Rhode Island is still sitting on the runway, looking to get clearance.”

There are alternatives for Rhode Islanders who wish to hire home inspectors who meet some kind of industry standard. Many home inspectors who work in Rhode Island also practice in Massachusetts or Connecticut and are licensed in those states.

There are also professional organizations, such as the American Association of Home Inspectors and the National Association of Home Inspectors, that offer certification.

In Massachusetts, inspectors now become licensed through an exam administered by the Examination Board of Professional Home Inspectors called the National Home Inspector Examination ( www.homeinspectionexam.org).

Carl Pucci, president of Mass.-based Tiger Home Inspection Inc., has 30 to 35 inspectors working in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and he said all of his inspectors are licensed in Massachusetts.

According to Pucci, passing the National Home Inspector exam is a requirement for membership with the American Society of Home Inspectors, and it is accepted for voluntary certification by the National Association for Home Inspectors.

Home inspector Lane W. Ukura, who lives in Bristol, is also licensed in Massachusetts, and he thinks Rhode Islanders would benefit from a strong licensing program because it would weed out unqualified inspectors.

“It would make it so people are held accountable,” said Ukura, who works for a national inspecting company, U.S. Inspect. “I think it’s a great idea.”

Should it ever be implemented, the Rhode Island law would also require licensed inspectors to carry errors and omissions insurance, which protects homeowners in case they suffer a loss because a home inspector missed a major problem with a house.

The insurance is expensive — Pucci said it costs about $3,000 to $7,000 per year to insure an inspector — and times are tough these days for home inspectors, as they are for most associated with the real estate business.

But Ukura said he has been in the field long enough to build a client base, and he said in this buyers’ market, some sellers are hiring him to conduct pre-market inspections so that they can identify and correct problems before they put their property on the market.

In Massachusetts, state law bans real estate brokers from directly recommending a particular home inspector to a client. The brokers are required to give customers a pamphlet produced by the Office of Consumer Affairs about home inspection, and they can provide — if asked — a list of licensed inspectors. This was done to help eliminate the potential conflict of interest in the broker-inspector relationship.

cdunn@projo.com