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LATEST NEWS
Texas Monthly - Texas Tort Reform |
Tuesday, 25 October 2005 |
Hurt? Injured? Need a Lawyer? Too Bad! Two years ago, rich and powerful Texans said lawsuits were ruining the stateâs economy and needed to be fairer. Today, thanks to tort reform, they are fairer&mdash for business. Ordinary people are out of luck... Once upon a time, the purpose of tort law was to make injured people whole. In Texas, victims of medical malpractice or corporate wrongdoing, no matter how poor or powerless, had some redress through the legal system. The Texas constitution plainly states that âall courts shall be openâ and that every injured person âshall have remedy by due course of law.â But through the efforts of a small group of wealthy and politically influential businessmen and a legislature slavishly devoted to the organization they founded, Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), those days are gone, and these rights may disappear across the nation as President Bush pushes his campaign against âgreedy trial lawyersâ and âfrivolous lawsuits.â...With the courts closed and the Legislature supine, the good people of TLR will have remade the world in their image, one in which there is no recourse for wrongdoing, one in which the powerful simply get their way. |
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Philadelphia Contractor behind bars |
Saturday, 22 October 2005 |
Contractor gets jail time A Quakertown contractor will have to rebuild his life from behind prison bars after deceiving 13 Montgomery County homeowners by taking more than $240â000 for remodeling projects that were not completed. |
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Contractor with an attitude |
Saturday, 22 October 2005 |
Investigation turns up violations for contractor There was supposed to be a frameless shower, recessed lighting, new windows in the bathroom and kitchen â and new appliances. All of these things, Jackson says, were not done;and that was just for starters... with the floor not level, the toilet leans forward..."Her expectations are sky high, and there's no way to meet them.â He also said that Jackson got exactly what she paid for...Code Enforcement says there are complaints against Vickers on 41 projects in Jacksonville alone. |
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New Jersey code official charged with taking bribes |
Tuesday, 18 October 2005 |
Ronald Estepp accused of accepting free meals and work in exchange for approving a construction project HILLSBOROUGH -- After a seven-month investigation into his department, the township's chief code enforcement officer was charged Monday with receiving $14,000 worth of work on his home and free meals in exchange for approving a construction project without proper inspections or permits...in violation of New Jersey State Uniform Construction Code -- a set of regulations and safe building standards that Estepp himself had helped to create as a member of the International Building Code Council and a former president of the New Jersey Building Officials Association. Estepp was named Builder of the Year by the association in 1999 and also sat on several committees that made amendments to the state Uniform Construction Code. |
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San Antonio Express-News Day 3 |
Tuesday, 18 October 2005 |
Part 3 Special Series When S.A. said, 'Stop,' Austin said, 'Go ahead' When San Antonio's top developers threw a fundraiser last year for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, architect Steve Heflin assured colleagues the poolside gala would pay off... "All of you who participated and contributed â Gov. Perry thanks you for it," Heflin wrote. "Next year when we are campaigning for vested rights legislation, we know we have a friend at our state capitol." Heflin later insisted campaign cash didn't buy the governor's support for an obscure "vested rights" statute that offers developers a way to sidestep modern city land-use ordinances, saving the industry an untold fortune. See 2nd article - Avoiding rules they wrote In 1994, engineer Gene Dawson Jr. served as the articulate chairman of a committee that wrote new rules intended to protect the Edwards Aquifer...Since then, Dawson's engineering firm has been prolific in helping developers avoid the very ordinance he authored...Pape-Dawson Engineers Inc. has sought exemptions from the water quality rules for clients 477 times â a third of all cases and more than any other firm. Graphic: A look at builders and development interests that gave money to state lawmakers between 2000 and 2004 |
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San Antonio Express-News Day 2 |
Monday, 17 October 2005 |
Part 2 Special Series - 2 Articles By John Tedesco Express-News Staff Writer Dig up an old plan, get vested But records show the developers began cutting down 600 acres of trees in August 2001, the same month the city signed off on their exemption to the tree rules...Today, homebuilders who bought parts of the property from Powell and Denton are preserving the 400 acres and wiping out much of the remaining forest, grinding the landscape to bare limestone for 2,000 homes. See 2nd article: Priced out of protection |
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Express-News Editor Robert Rivard comments on series |
Sunday, 16 October 2005 |
Part 1 Special Series Robert Rivard: Losing ground: Aquifer faces peril as a city grows wrong way The original plan called for publication nearly two months ago of "Losing Ground," John Tedesco's exhaustive examination of unchecked development over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone. It begins today on Page 1 and continues inside for five pages. The series itself continues into the week. "Losing Ground" is not an effort by the Express-News to vilify developers or to send an anti-growth message. Smart, planned growth in one of the nation's fastest growing cities is the prescription. And while many developers have built and are building neighborhoods and subdivisions that feature native trees, lush vegetation and substantial green space, others are throwing up cookie-cutter developments that are void of trees and seemingly supplant the very beauty of the land that is the reason people are attracted to the Texas Hill Country. What readers need to know, whatever stance you take on these complex public policy issues, is that local government actually exercises very little control over development. See photos of clear cutting |
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Express News - Four Part Series - Losing Ground |
Sunday, 16 October 2005 |
Part 1 Special Series Losing Ground - Law lets developers ignore growth controls An obscure Texas law written for developers has cost San Antonio millions of dollars, stripped parts of the scenic Hill Country of trees and blocked attempts to protect the region's water supply. The "vested rights" law stops cities from imposing new restrictions on a real estate project once a developer files virtually any kind of plan for it. From that point on, the project is "vested" and frozen in a time warp of more lenient city codes. See photos of clear cutting ... See 2nd article: Losing Ground: How we did this report The Texas grandfathering law has played a pivotal yet often hidden role in shaping San Antonio's growth. To determine the law's impact, the San Antonio Express-News pored over files for each vested project, conducted scores of interviews and analyzed several government databases. |
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Flordia's former head of state licensing agency investigated |
Wednesday, 12 October 2005 |
Former DBPR head facing inquiry Tallahassee lobbyist Cynthia Henderson once headed the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, the state agency that licenses construction contractors. But the agency, acting on an anonymous complaint, is now investigating whether the remodeling of Henderson's kitchen for the upcoming show "Capital Dish" was done by contractors not licensed to practice in Florida...Just three months after Gov. Jeb Bush first appointed her to head the regulatory agency in 1999, she flew to the Kentucky Derby on a corporate jet owned by a restaurant chain her office regulated, and she was later criticized for firing four lawyers and an investigator who were probing complaints of poor workmanship by a construction company run by the head of the Florida Home Builders Association. |
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USA Today - Mortgage Fraud |
Wednesday, 12 October 2005 |
Fraud booms with mortgage market "Criminals are opportunists," says William Matthews, co-author of a recent report on mortgage fraud by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute. "If you've got a booming market, they're going to get away with more fraud."...Lenders last year reported to the FBI 17,000 suspected incidents of mortgage fraud, and the FBI's cases have grown from 534 in 2004 to 642 in the first half of 2005. At the IRS, criminal investigations of mortgage fraud from 2001 to 2004 have nearly doubled to 194 cases. |
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Attention:Texas Attorney General Investigating Washington Mutual |
Monday, 10 October 2005 |
FOX 4 Investigative Report File a complaint with the Texas Attorney General Hundreds of customers of the mortgage giant complain they are getting socked with unnecessary fees and threats of foreclosure. If you have a complaint against Washington Mutual, you should direct those complaints to the Texas attorney general at 512 463-2100 or www.oag.state.tx.us. |
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KFOR News4 - Convicted State Senator paid HUD Funds? |
Monday, 10 October 2005 |
'No Agent' makes no deal Kingston was a state senator when he was caught illegally buying HUD properties and renting them out. The government claimed Kingston did not make payments on the properties causing HUD, using taxpayer money, to pay off the mortgages when the properties went into foreclosure. Leo Kingston was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to federal prison and so was his wife Paulette. She is the one now seen in the commercials for 1-800-No-Agent or RAK properties. NewsChannel 4 learned that as a result of his fraud conviction Kingstonâs name was on a government list barring him from being a HUD funded landlord for low income properties. See related information: HUD's Broken System |
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70 Families Sue KB Home Mortgage |
Sunday, 09 October 2005 |
KB Home recently paid $3.2M in HUD fines for mortgage irregularities. Mortgage scams are catching up with homeowners who are struggling to keep their home but, many may be losing the battle to foreclosure. REPORT MORTGAGE IRREGULARITIES - If you think you are a victim - Report Mortgage Fraud Ft Worth Star-Telegram The high price of mortgages The Lights have taken their case to court. They are among more than 70 Tarrant County couples and individuals suing their lender, KB Home Mortgage Co., saying it negligently underestimated the amount of property tax that the homeowners needed to pay into escrow accounts to pay future taxes and insurance premiums... Another KB customer participating in the lawsuit, Ella Gray, moved into her KB-built home in Arlington's South Ridge development in August 2001. Her mortgage required a tax escrow of just under $50 a month, or about $600 a year. But in 2002, she was notified that her taxes for the year were going up -- to $4,129.37, or $344 a month, according to Tarrant Appraisal District data... Gray and other homeowners in South Ridge discovered in 2001 that their neighborhood had been used as a practice bombing range decades earlier and was still peppered with tiny unexploded bombs. Related article: HUD ANNOUNCES $3.2 MILLION SETTLEMENT AGINST KB HOME MORTGAGE COMPANY |
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Dallas - Developers, Bribery, Affordable Housing & FBI Investigation |
Friday, 07 October 2005 |
EXCLUSIVE: CHANNEL 11 INVESTIGATES FBI TAPES ALLEGED TO SHOW MAYOR PRO-TEM DON HILL CLOSELY INVOLVED IN NEGOTIATING CASH PAYMENT, OTHER COMPENSATION, FOR DEVELOPMENT VOTE A Dallas lawyer and two local contractors claimed to be working closely with Mayor Pro-Tem Don Hill this Spring when a developer paid them a $50,000 down payment on a deal in which Hill would stop stalling a south Dallas project and get it approved, say two independent sources familiar with covert tape recordings of the negotiations. |
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Hurrican Survivors and Mortgage Lenders Suffer |
Friday, 07 October 2005 |
Mold Sickens Hurricane Survivors ... and Mortgage Lenders Financial institutions are falling victim to mold. It's not infecting their offices, it's destroying homes and businesses along the Gulf Coast region devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. |
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EX-Judge Disbared for Binding Arbitration Clause |
Friday, 07 October 2005 |
Hawai'i Supreme Court disbars former judge The high court decision said Lee included in the agreement with clients a requirement that the clients submit any dispute over legal fees to binding arbitration. But if the Office of Disciplinary Counsel becomes involved prior to the settlement by arbitration, the clients agree to pay Lee's law firm $2,000. |
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