Architects Oppose Licensure of Interior Designers

While we respect interior designers’ desire for increased professionalism, a marketing solution is a much more appropriate approach because this bill does NOT increase public health and safety.  In fact, its grandfathering provisions would have just the opposite effect. 

There is little new under the sun.  Licensure seeks only to carve out a niche for an overlapping profession to the detriment of decorators and the public.  On the one side, this bill seeks to curtail the practice of interior decorators by regulating an area not affecting the public health, safety, and welfare.  On the other side of this bill, interior designers step beyond their area of expertise, education and experience, adversely affecting the public health, safety and welfare.

Licensure does NOT protect vulnerable citizens such as nursing home patients as interior designers suggest.  Consumer protection laws govern fire retardant materials.  Building and fire codes specify safety features for building exteriors and interiors.  Architects and engineers are educated, tested and experienced in providing safe solutions in these arenas.

The Better Business Bureau states that only 52 law suits have been filed against interior designers nationally since 1907.  24 were breach of contract, 12 were poor quality work, 5 were poor service, 4 were fraud, 3 were safety, 3 were lack of license and 1 was a code violation.  We were unable to find any lawsuits filed in Tennessee.  There is no public outcry for protection.

Indiana Governor Mitchell Daniels, Jr., vetoed a similar bill stating, “I find no compelling public interest that is served by the establishment of new registration requirements for interior designers…nor the bill’s effective ‘criminalization’ of violations of such registration requirements….the effect of SEA  490 will be to restrain competition and limit new entrants into the occupation by requiring that they meet new educational and experience qualifications previously not necessary to practice their trade.”

Only three states have practice acts in place—Louisiana, Washington DC and Florida.  In Alabama, although an act was approved by the Legislature,  it has been stayed by the Supreme Court which deemed it unconstitutional and removed the regulating board.  Louisiana’s act is based upon the Napoleanic code.  Washington DC has had one since 1968 and Florida has a very broad residential exemption.  No other states have adopted practice acts for interior design.  The only reason they even looked into it was at the insistence of the associations, not because of public demand for protection.

Washington Post and Newsweek columnist George Will writes on this subject, “Wallpapering with red tape…placing furniture without a license…heaven forbid!!  The government licenses engineers and doctors because if their testable skills are deficient, bridges collapse and patients die.  The skills of interior designers are neither similarly measurable nor comparably disastrous when deficient.  Perhaps designers could show potential clients a portfolio of their work, and government could trust the potential clients to judge.  Just a thought.”