Star-Telegram: Woman wonders if bill absolves builders of warranty responsibility
Under normal circumstances, Janet Ahmad, president of HomeOwners for Better Building, says she would be celebrating a House bill now before the Senate that would require Texas home builders to get licensed by the state. But when she read a late amendment offered by state Rep. Allan Ritter, D-Nederland, to House Bill 2295, she called the Star-Telegram to sound the alarm... "I think it absolves the builder of all warranties."
Woman wonders if bill absolves builders of warranty responsibility
Woman wonders if bill lets builders off hook
Under normal circumstances, Janet Ahmad, president of HomeOwners for Better Building, says she would be celebrating a House bill now before the Senate that would require Texas home builders to get licensed by the state.
But when she read a late amendment offered by state Rep. Allan Ritter, D-Nederland, to House Bill 2295, she called the Star-Telegram to sound the alarm.
Under Ritterâs amendment, which passed as part of the House version, warranties for "all manufactured products" would no longer be issued in buildersâ names but in homeownersâ names.
To Ahmad, that means the builder is out of the repair process.
Currently, if a door or window is warped in the first year after an owner occupies a new home, the builder must make it right.
Ritterâs amendment, Ahmad says, appears to take the builder out of the process.
Not so, says Ritter, who told the Star-Telegram that the bill also states that if a manufacturer does not fix the problem "within a reasonable amount of time, the builder shall make that condition comply with the performance standards."
Ritter said, "That means that the builder is ultimately responsible for making repairs on a defective product installed in a home during the warranty period."
His amendment, he says, benefits consumers because manufacturers â and ultimately builders â are still responsible.
Ahmad says she isnât so sure.
"I think it absolves the builder of all warranties."
The matter is now before the Senate, which, with a little more than two weeks to go in the legislative session, has taken no action on the bill.
â Dave Lieber
http://www.star-telegram.com/legislature/story/1382538.html
|