The 5PM Friday deadline is fast approaching, and so far no word from state House Speaker Frank Chopp as to whether he plans to let the Homeowner’s Bill of Rights come to the floor for a vote. If he does, it will surely pass by wide margins, giving owners of single family homes the same rights condo owners have had since 1990. If he doesn’t, than unfortunate homeowners like Scott Thalhamer will remain mired knee-deep in muck in the basement of his one-year-old home, barred by law from suing contractors for shoddy workmanship and code violations.
Even the Seattle Times agrees that this bill provides “reasonable protections,” yet according to KOMO-TV, one man stands in the way: Speaker Frank Chopp. Watch the video and see for your self, then dial the legislative hotline at 800-562-6000 and ask your representatives to ask Frank to let them vote on SB 6385.
Chopp should read the articles available on the internet about what has happened to homebuyers in Texas to get an idea of what BIAW and Bob Perry are trying to import into Washington.
“ … Mr. Perry … is the homebuilder that has the Texas couple Bob and Jane Cull, locked in a 10-year legal battle over structural problems with their house. He … spent $8 million in campaign contributions to influence the creation of a new (2003) state agency that regulates homebuyers.”
http://tinyurl.com/2mppgd
Roger Rabbit Commentary: You read that right: Texas has a state agency that REGULATES HOMEBUYERS. Talk about special interest legislation — it’s a fucking protection racket!
“… [C]ritics of the Texas overhauls … point to a chilling of legal recourse options for homebuyers seeking reparation for … shoddy workmanship …. [T]he state’s homebuilder lobby had … passage of the Residential Construction Liability Act. … According [to] homeowner advocates … the … act … [left] homebuyers at the mercy of the homebuilders. … Legislation was passed placing limits on the amount of money that could be awarded to a homebuyer in a legal dispute, regardless of a builder’s … negligence. Later legislation went further, making it more difficult for homebuyers to prove damage or structural flaws may have been caused during the original construction process. …
“In Texas, … ‘Everybody has to go to binding arbitration, even if your roof is leaking or your wall cracking, and sometimes it takes months to resolve’ noted Janet Ahmed who went on to say if the situation is unlivable, and the homebuyer decides to fix the problem themselves, they … forfeit their warranty and future repairs become the sole responsibility of the homeowner.
“At Ahmed’s organization’s web site HOBB.ORG, countless horror stories offer details of … stories where new homeowners discover defects like toxic mold or shoddy structural construction …. HOBB also highlights frustration over new roadblocks in the Texas legal system …. Groups like Public Citizen, Consumers Union and Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings who’ve dealt with arbitration say it amounts to a Kangaroo court. …
“Ahmed says campaign contributions provided Bob Perry and his allies influence over … legislation she argues is now responsible for regulating the home buying public and not the home builder industry. … Ahmed warns that what happened in Texas is coming to the rest of the country …. ‘If the wealthy Texas based homebuilders are able to limit liability in Texas then they are also going to try and influence the political arena in other states to do the same thing,’ she said.”
http://www.codylyon.com/id19.h tml
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Click on the link below to read about how a Houston couple’s dream home turned into a nightmare. The first time they used the bathtub, the water drained through the ceiling into the dining room. And that was only the beginning. http://www.motherjones.com/new s/feature/2005/07/home_sour_ho me.html
Speaker Chopp should spend a little time reading this web site to help him understand what’s at stake.
http://hobb.org/
Here’s some photos (from the same web site) of what I’m talking about. http://www.hobb.org/component/.....temid,468/
Isn’t this the one that makes sense for everybody except for Frank Chopp’s donors? How can expect good things from our government when a single lawmaker can prevent consumer protections because he takes donations from the BIAW?
@1 This isn’t Texas, and the oft repeated statement that you can’t sue your homebuilder is pure bunk. The fact that Sen. Weinstein sued and reached a settlement deal with his homebuilder and window supplier would seem to indicate that his claim that you can’t sue is in fact not true.
Poorly worded legislation can have unintended effects. Sen. Weinstein’s legislation doesn’t define what a defect is, nor does it define who a construction professional is. Lawyers will have a field day with this one.
“Lawyers will have a field day with this one”
With some things, such as shoddy home builders, they should.
@6 It’s not inconcievable that if you hire a contractor to build your home, and you make any decision about the design or materials that you could be considered a “construction professional” under this legislation. So three years later you sell the house, the windows turn out to have leaks, the new homeowner could sue you along with everyone else involved in the construction. That’s what I mean by having a field day. Broadly worded legislation without definitions of key terms will leave it up to a judge or jury to decide what it means.
For the guy with the flooded basement, he should sue his builder, which he’s currently allowed to do under WA law.
http://www.lni.wa.gov/TradesLi.....efault.asp
Maybe we can get a homebuilders’ bill of rights, like they (currently) have in Texas …
How about simply getting a new Speaker of the House? That would only require the action of about 33 or so Democrats, as opposed to 50 representatives required to pass a bill.
@5 You’re missing the whole fucking point. BIAW and its allies are trying to turn Washington into Texas. They would if they could.
Tell you what, ewp. Go ahead, take legal rights away from home buyers. Know how savvy consumers will respond to that? They won’t buy new homes, that’s how. If the homebuilding industry erects a wall of legal protection around themselves so they can take people’s life savings with impunity, they’ll protect themselves right out of business because there’ll be no market for what they want to sell, at any price.
@7 Complete total bullshit. You know less about law than my barber.
ewp must be BIAW’s designated mouthpiece for HA.
@9 How about if Chopp just releases the bill? That’s less complicated.
Who is this Frank Chopp fuck?
Screw him. I hate democrats (but not as much as rethugs).
@13
How about Chopp calling it good and retiring? With Democrats like that who needs Republicans.
One thing for sure, we don’t need Frank Chopp. Let’s hear it for Lisa Brown! I met her. She is a politician, but she is Kool!! (I think…)
One thing for sure about Lisa Brown – – she is not pretentious. I would stake my life on that. I saw her home, I met her neighbors. She is Kool.
@10 You miss the point. Home builders aren’t trying to “erect a wall” — nor are they trying to “take legal rights away.” This bill is all about trial lawyers attempting to create new ways to sue builders. Homeowners already have adequate safeguards. Passing this bill will only increase insurance costs for all builders. Those costs will be passed on to new home purchasers. This state can ill afford new regulations that will drive up the cost of housing.
@7: The topic is new home purchasers, not remodel contractors. The situations are not analogous.
Please try to pay attention.
What’s the point of having codes if they don’t have to be followed? And why would the bureaucrats who inspect for such (and they do…) give a pass to this? It’s the govt. bureaucrats fault, too, for not following their own rules.
How about a taxpayers’ Bill of Rights—like Govt. isn’t allowed to waste our money, and has to cooperate with the state auditor when he comes calling (unlike those at Port of Seattle, who balked at giving info).
@14 “Who is this Frank Chopp fuck?”
He’s the guy who handed Mark Griswold his ass. http://tinyurl.com/266t39
Griswold is the ex-GOP candidate who posted on Sucky Politics that we need another terrorist attack so people will vote Republican again. http://tinyurl.com/ydlfwu
@18 Bullshit.
@20 No, it’s the fault of shady builders who throw up shoddy construction and then try to hide behind a binding arbitration process controlled by shady builders.
@21 So you think every taxpayer who disagrees with how his money is spent should be able to sue the government?
I’ll tell you who I’m gonna sue. I’m gonna sue George W. Bush and the entire Republican Party for my share of the $2 trillion refund they owe us on their Iraq fiasco.
#21: Who said sue the govt? Read the post again.
s/b #25. But you knew that. So yes, read the post again.
..but since you like to sue the govt, how about suing Bill and Hill for stealing all those hundreds of FBI files?
Here’s another comment I saved from the wingnut blog around the same time as GOP candidate Mark Griswold was advocating killing Americans as a way to get more people to vote for Republicans:
“Cato, Saddam was less than a year away from having a nuke. Saddam opening supported terrorist. Did you drive to work today? Allow wide range oil drilling and the price will drop. If the war was soley for oil it would be 25$ a barrel, since we are a fair people we still pay the warket price instead of just taking the oil which we could do.
Brad – Posted by Brad Strecker at November 8, 2006 12:25 PM
http://blog.usefulwork.com/cgi.....ry_id=7432”
Notice the gross inability to spell simple words. Notice, also, the gross factual inaccuracies. Notice the total lack of comprehension of what a “market price” is. Notice the sheer lunacy of this idiot’s thought process. It’s too damned bad we have to let him vote, and even more unfortunate that we can’t pith him like a frog in biology class, but at least we can laugh at him when he pumps $4 gas into his jalopy this spring: “Hey dude, how’s that $25 Iraqi oil working out for ya?”
Proud to be an Ass @ 19
You hit the nail right on the head. A builder is an entirely different creature than a mere contractor. A builder generally buys vacant lots from developer, builds homes from the ground up, and then (hopefully) sells the finished product to a new home buyer for a profit in the high five figures or even low six figures.
An argument can be made for treating home builders with softer gloves than condominium builders. However, the situation is similar enough, that new home buyers should be afforded some protections. They can be screwed worse than used home buyers — if you buy an existing home, it has been broken in, and the current owner likely fixed any problems and problems which still need fixing tend to be obvious, either upon lay inspection or expert inspection.
The homebuyers bill of rights also passed muster with the Seattle Times editorial board — a group of folks who usually tend to fall in the mainstream pro-business crowd (as opposed to the extreme pro-business crowd). So I will assume the proposed legislation is pretty sensible and balanced.
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
Of course, you know what’s coming after $4 gas.
$5 gas.
26, 27 We already have such laws, jackass.
@30 Sensible and balanced legislation is the last thing the BIAW crowd wants. They want to play with a stacked deck.
Roger Rabbit @ 32
$4.01-9/10 gas?
What we need in this country is to put all lawyers in
prison in Arizona under guard of that sheriff from
Maricopa county. The goddamn lawyer greed is ruining the
whole country with their bullshit lawsuits. They are the reason healthcare is so ridiculously expensive. Wait till
they get their hooks into contractors. They already pay
huge amounts of insurance. Maybe Hillary and Obama can
promise free housing too for all Americans.
29 I would bet Brad would not have trouble punching out his chad like all the retard democrats did in Florida.
He just has not learned to use spellcheck like Roger.
Frank Chopp is a dictator, it’s his way or no way. He sucessfully held up Tacoma Narrows Bridge construction for a year because he doesn’t like public private partnerships. A number of lawmakers, both state and federal, asked him to reconsider, but no.
So my guess is that he is going to hold up the Homeowners Bill of Rights until he gets a bill to his liking. That would be next year at the earliest. It doesn’t matter to him how much support there is for this bill.
Looks like this bill didn’t make it again: http://flooractivityext.leg.wa.....?chamber=3
This is awful. Chopp is anti-democracy.
Hahaha, you reap what you sow with Democrats! Try to pin this on Republicans you dipshits! ROFL! *fart*
No, this isn’t a Republican thing. Frank Chopp is a democrat — who is taking marching orders from a big donor rather than fight for what’s right for our citizens.
It’s government by purchase. Plain and simple. Sad and party independent.
Has anyone else noticed that Roger Rabbit consistently makes false statements, then proceeds to curse out anyone who points out his lies. Mr. Rabbit you have no credibility.
So. Does Weinstein reply with opting out of retirement, or does he decide to continue his process of returning to private life after this session in Olympia is over?
I have no idea personally, but I suspect Brian is not very happy right now. The question is, how mad is he? And how determined is he get this bill through?
This could bite Frank hard if Brian decides to “un-retire”.
Rabbit, You should stick to being a know it all asshole
because you know nothing about construction.