Senate bill for home warranties languishes

One of the liveliest fights of this year’s legislative session seems to have been fought to a standstill.

Weighing in on a bill that pitted a trial-lawyer legislator against the conservative home-building industry, House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, is calling for more study of a Senate proposal to require transferable warranties on new homes.

The sponsor of Senate Bill 5550 said there’s nothing to study. Sen. Brian Weinstein, D-Mercer Island, has said that the warranties many builders now provide are largely toothless documents that steer victims of shoddy construction into costly mediation before industry-picked mediators.

But the bill would be a huge mistake for both builders and home-buyers, according to the Building Industry Association of Washington.

The group said that Weinstein’s proposal would dramatically drive up insurance costs for builders.

Result: Small companies would go out of business, jobs would be lost, and homes would cost much more, BIAW officials say.

Weinstein said history is simply repeating itself. In 1999, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles proposed a similar bill. It died in the statehouse amid vows from builders to study the issue and work out problems.

“Nothing’s happened,” Weinstein said. “They don’t want to study the issue. They want to kill it.”

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said the Senate will keep pushing for the bill.