Minnesota Man Becomes A Home Inspector Just By Declaring It Because The State Requires Nothing, Then Shows How Sellers Win By Never Looking For Mold

“I just became a home inspector.” That is how Dillon, the contractor behind @dadchats, opens his video, and he is not joking. Two days after deciding to pursue a residential general contractor license, he says he is now a home inspector simply because he declared it.

A man in a vehicle pouring a drink with a caption about becoming a home inspector on the left, and a wall with black mold stains on the right, illustrating a Minnesota man who becomes a home inspector with no state requirement and a seller who avoids looking for mold.

His application for the contractor exam was accepted the day before. By his telling, the application was literally just his contact information.

@dadchats

Minnesota Is One Of About 15 States That Require Nothing To Be A Home Inspector

Dillon says the idea started when he was digging through comments and emails and kept seeing the same theme: checks and balances. Home inspectors are the people responsible for checking the work, so he asked what it takes to become one.

The answer, as it turns out, is that you start the business. From what he can tell, Minnesota is one of about 15 states that require nothing at all. Insurance is not even mandated by the state.

He had planned to show the statutes saying you do not need a license, as he did in an earlier video. That could not happen, he says, because those statutes do not exist. Minnesota does not regulate home inspectors whatsoever.

There are voluntary associations that inspectors can join, and those do require certain things. But as Dillon puts it, they are just that: voluntary.

Texas Asks For Experience, Supervised Inspections And A Test

For contrast, he looks at Texas, which commenters had called even worse than Minnesota when it comes to the general contractor license. On that front, he agrees, you do not seem to need anything.

But for home inspectors, Texas has a lot of checks. Dillon lists lots of experience, many inspections done under supervision, a test, different modules and practicums.

Minnesota, he says, decided not to rely so much on licensed inspectors. It leans on seller disclosures instead, which means the seller is responsible for telling you everything that is wrong with the house.

“The Loophole Is That It Incentivizes Intentional Ignorance”

As Dillon says, where there is a law, there is a loophole. Seller disclosure laws often reward sellers who decide not to look any further than they have to.

His example: if a homeowner has water damage, it works to their advantage not to investigate whether there is mold, because a mold finding would trigger a mandatory disclosure. “In other words, the loophole is that it incentivizes intentional ignorance.”

The buyer, then, can end up paying for a problem the seller chose never to look for.

Truth In Sale Of Housing Covers About 2% Of Minnesota Cities

Some cities in Minnesota have adopted what is called a truth in sale of housing program. A specifically licensed inspector looks at a seller’s house to find basic code violations and confirm minimum requirements.

Even that, Dillon says, is mostly more disclosures. “It’s not actual consumer protection.” By his math, it covers about 2% of all Minnesota cities, so whether you get that extra layer depends on your zip code.

He Can Run A Contractor Company And An Inspection Company At The Same Time

Dillon already runs a general contractor LLC called Blue Tape Builders. Will he open a second LLC for inspections? No, and he calls that the scarier part.

He says he can find no Minnesota statute or code that makes it unlawful, or even a concern, to own a residential general contracting business and a home inspector business under the same entity.

He also finds no rule that forces a waiting period between the time an inspector decides what is wrong with a home and the time the same company does the repairs as the general contractor. Many states have that provision, he says, and it is common sense. “In my field, we call it a conflict of interest.”

A General Contractor License For $50 And An Open Book Test

Dillon’s recap of the state of things in Minnesota is blunt. For the largest financial investment most people will ever make, a general contractor can get a license with $50 and a written test that is open book.

Many of the subcontractors who do a lot of the work on the house need no license at all. And the home inspector, the person who tells you whether anything is wrong with the build, needs no license, experience or insurance.

The Sales Rep Who Showed Up To Inspect The Siding

That is why, Dillon says, you should always vet your home inspector and never trust whoever the other side tells you to hire. He gives an example: a builder sends someone out after you report water intrusion and improper siding installation.

The person shows up two hours late. You expect a long inspection, but he takes a couple of photos with his iPhone and heads for the door. When you ask if he is going to inspect the siding, he says “huh?” Finally he tells you: “No, I’m a sales rep.”

How To Protect Yourself When You Buy A Home

Whatever your state requires, Dillon’s message is to do the digging yourself. Here are practical steps that fit what he describes.

Check what your state actually requires of home inspectors before you hire one, since the rules differ widely.
Ask an inspector about training, years of experience, number of inspections and insurance.
Pick your own inspector rather than one suggested by the seller, the builder or the agent on the other side.
Ask whether the inspector also does repairs, which creates the conflict of interest Dillon describes.
Read the seller disclosure with care and ask direct questions about water damage, since a seller may not have looked into mold.

The point is not that every inspector in a lightly regulated state is bad. Many have trained for years and belong to voluntary associations with real standards. The point is that in a state like Minnesota, only the buyer’s own homework separates a good inspector from someone who simply declared the job.

For most families, a house is the biggest purchase of a lifetime. Spending an afternoon asking questions about the person who will check it is time well spent.

Willow and Hearth