Reports of home repair fraud have slowed since Hurricane Katrina, but groups representing licensed home builders believe Mississippi needs stronger laws to protect consumers from the heartbreak and expense of shoddy or fraudulent work.
The Attorney Generalâs Office says Katrina fraud cases are tapering off, but complaints are becoming more common in other parts of the state. Cases referred to the attorney generalâs Consumer Protection Division decreased almost 39 percent from 2007 to 2008, when 423 cases were reported.
âPeople have become more aware of the problem,â said Meredith Aldridge, director of the attorney generalâs Consumer Protection Division. âWeâre seeing cases throughout the state and not just on the Coast.â
Rhonda Rhodes, executive director of the Hancock County Housing Resource Center, has seen firsthand the economic devastation suffered by Katrina survivors. She estimates that 30 to 40 HCHRC clients need help rebuilding because they lost their recovery funds to incompetent or dishonest builders.
Construction suppliers suffer, too, when builders fail to pay for supplies received on credit.
Attempts to strengthen licensing and insurance requirements have repeatedly failed in the Mississippi Legislature. Only about half the states in the country have licensing requirements, according to the National Association of Home Builders, which is neutral on the licensing issue.
The national association says workmanâs compensation insurance for builders is almost universally required by states. Mississippi, however, is an exception. The state does not require builders to secure workmanâs comp or general liability insurance.
âWe feel like as an industry that itâs hard to understand,â said Marty Milstead, executive vice president of the Mississippi Home Builders Association. âFor heaven sakes, you have to take a test to drive a car. You have to have insurance to drive a car, but not to build a house.â
Milstead said the state House of Representatives has been unwilling to require insurance.
Mississippi has licensing requirements, but professional organizations believe the threshold for a license should be lower than state law currently mandates.
Under state law, a person can build two houses a year without a license as long as the house is not intended for resale. On the Coast, however, home repair fraud after Katrina has prompted localities to create lower thresholds for licensing.
âThe local permit offices are doing what the state canât or wonât do,â said John Sullivan, executive director of the Mississippi State Board of Contractors, which licenses commercial contractors and home builders.
âThe reality is, we need a clear state law that says you have to have a license to build a house, period. It gives us a trail to follow if they do wrong. An unlicensed contractor, we donât know who he is, we donât know where he is. We need to have one threshold.â
State Rep. Brandon Jones of Pascagoula said he became involved in efforts to strengthen state laws because of countless telephone calls from Katrina survivors victimized as they tried to rebuild.