Our View: SB 6385 could harm nonprofit home builders

Washington state Sen. Brian Weinstein insists that home buyers in this state cannot sue contractors over negligent construction. Home builders say he’s wrong.

If the Mercer Island Democrat is correct, then his proposal to rectify the situation deserves serious consideration. But if the builders are correct (and they point out that Weinstein once sued his own builder), then the measure could do serious harm. Not just to commercial contractors, but also to nonprofit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity or Spokane’s Community Frameworks, which provide affordable housing for low-income families while operating on the narrow margins you’d expect of a charitable enterprise.

Weinstein’s bill, Senate Bill 6385, says a construction professional has to exercise “reasonable care” and if failure to do so “results in damage to any portion of the real property,” the buyer can sue.

That short bill is broad and ambiguous, though, and lawyers who represent contractors and nonprofit organizations with a stake in home building are concerned about the doors the legislation might open. The overarching concern is that uncertainty could make liability insurance skyrocket in price if not dry up altogether. The current economy doesn’t need that kind of trouble, especially if it would affect housing for the needy.

Those concerns are more than conjecture. Builders recall the insurance market’s reaction several years ago when a wave of litigation, mostly involving condominiums, touched off what some describe as a crisis.

Community Frameworks was 12 units into a 36-unit condominium project in the Spokane Valley when insurance carriers simply excluded condominiums. The project came to a halt, and it took two years before insurers decided to limit the exclusion to specific materials that had mold problems rather than condos in general. Only then did work resume.

SB 6385 has passed the Senate and gone to the House, just as a similar plan did last year. That’s as far as it went then, thanks to House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, who understands the low-income housing community’s issues. Instead of risking the harm that SB 6385 might cause, Chopp set up a legislative task force that has now produced a bill to consider the licensing of contractors and to take an inventory that would give a clearer picture of home-construction complaints.

That approach isn’t as theatrical as Weinstein’s bill, but it is a lot more promising.