Spokane7
60°
February 6, 2009 in Opinion
Our View: Homeowner’s bill of rights confusing, unnecessary
The annual move is under way to pave an express lane to the courthouse doors.
Legislation has been introduced in Olympia, under such appealing names as the homeowner’s bill of rights, to make it easier for dissatisfied home buyers to sue contractors. For a decade, state lawmakers have considered and ultimately rejected similar proposals. There is no reason this year’s version – or versions – deserve a more favorable fate.
What? Should unscrupulous or incompetent home builders be free to victimize consumers and turn the American dream into a tormented nightmare?
No, they shouldn’t. And they aren’t.
A new remedy isn’t necessary because various avenues already exist for resolving disputes over construction defects.
A former state senator championed the homeowner’s bill of rights because, he insisted, builders were immune from lawsuits; however, he had successfully sued his own builder. This week the state attorney general’s office announced a consent decree under which a Spokane contracting business must pay nearly $50,000 in restitution for alleged conduct much like the kind of complaints witnesses described on Wednesday to the House Judiciary Committee.
Justice is not out of aggrieved home buyers’ reach.
That’s not to say the system doesn’t break down sometimes. Many consumers do have legitimate tales of woe.
But the benefits of any legislative proposal need to be weighed against its drawbacks, which in this case are significant. Conspicuous among them is a broadly and ambiguously worded explanation of the circumstances under which the law would kick in. Buyers who are “adversely affected” by construction flaws would have standing to sue under House Bill 1045, one of the measures under consideration. Such flaws must be, in the language of the bill, “more than technical and … significant to a reasonable person.”
Whatever that means.
The unpredictability created by such language widens the opportunity for litigation and sounds an alarm to insurance underwriters, thus driving up the costs for builders – including those who construct low-income housing – and buyers alike.
In this harshly recessionary economy, that risk can’t be justified when other means of recovery exist for buyers with valid complaints.
Don’t fudge fish standard 
ramz1999 on February 08 at 5:01 a.m.
As a homeowner who just finished a two year legal battle with a home builder, I can tell you this bill is needed.
In testimony by experts from both sides of the case, it was determined that my house (and the other houses in my development) were not built using good construction practices. They weren’t built to code. They weren’t even built to the plans that were approved by the county.
In the course of our “legal” battle, it came to light that the builder KNEW that the short cuts they took were wrong and were causing home owners problems. They chose to ignore that and continue to build them the same way as to not “raise concerns” among the home owners. They addressed this issue by stringing along the home owners who knew of the problem until their warranties ran out. This was the company policy.
With all that in out there it sounds like I have a good case doesn’t it? Save for one small mistake by the home builder (which has since been corrected) I would have lost my case.
We did not win the part of the case says they built a crappy house. In fact, the builder admitted they built a crappy house. There are no laws on the books that says they can’t build me a crappy house. NONE. And that was pointed out in our hearing day after day by the builder’s lawyers, and the judge agreed with them.
We did not win the part of the case that they broke the contract with us to “build us a house using the highest standards possible”. Because they did build us a house using the highest standards possible..with the staff and materials they had.
The only thing we won our case on was their marketing material. They claimed to have a “quality control manager” on site to make sure that our houses were built to the highest standards. In testimony it was determined that no such person existed. This is in violation of the Consumer Protection Act. Their marketing material was changed before we went to trial. They closed the last loop hole in the legal defense.
The damage estimate on my home from poor construction is between $85-$170K. We won $56k minus legal fees in court. better than nothing…but not enough to fix the problem.
We have heard from other home owners who were not so lucky in suing their builders.
This bill is intended to give home owners the same rights that Condo owners have.