HOME OWNERS for   BETTER BUILDING
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                                                      — PRESS RELEASE —

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                            Contact: Janet Ahmad
January 24, 2006

        State Comptroller Releases Report on the Texas
          Residential Construction Commission (TRCC)
         TRCC FUNCTIONS AS BUILDER PROTECTION AGENCY

Austin – In a news conference Monday, Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn issued a report that concludes the Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC) functions as a Builder Protection Agency and that her research found no evidence that TRCC has any favorable impact on homeowners.

HomeOwners for Better Building ( HOBB ) was in attendance as the Comptroller delivered the results of her findings of a review of TRCC, requested by State Representative Todd Smith, last August.

Janet Ahmad, National President of HomeOwners for Better Building issued the following comments: “We have persistently expressed our frustration over the inequities of bad homebuilding, to anyone who would listen, and the waste of millions of dollars charged by the bureaucracy at TRCC to new homebuyers across this state.” See: Can Texas Homeowners Afford to Complain? ( 10/15/2004 ). “We can not express our gratitude enough to Representative Smith for his concern for the plight of homeowners and his request for this review.”

Yesterday our claims were confirmed as Carole Strayhorn’s words rang loud and clear; “ This agency imposes costly and bureaucratic roadblocks for homeowners left out in the cold by shabby construction and a commission dominated by builders,” Strayhorn said.

”For these reasons, if it were up to me personally, I would blast this Texas Residential Construction Commission builder-protection agency off the bureaucratic books," Strayhorn concluded. ”

“Year after year the industry had the same old excuse for its failures; ‘TRCC is just in its infancy.’ The fact is that excuse doesn’t work any longer. If this is an infancy thing, I'd hate to see what it is when it grows up,” said Ahmad. "How many bad homes is enough?"

Anyone can be a builder in Texas , just look at the report. “TRCC files show that a currently registered builder was convicted of burglary of a vehicle, burglary of a building and attempted homicide. Another builder was convicted of a sex crime and registered as a sex offender just months before he was allowed to register as a homebuilder.”

“The question is, will homeowners in the state of Texas have a voice as to where we go from here, to truly protect people when purchasing something as fundamental as decent housing,” said Ahmad?

As Carole Strayhorn said; “Caveat emptor--let the buyer beware--is the motto of the unscrupulous. It should not be the hallmark of state policy.”

“We can either perform extensive life saving procedures on this experimental TRCC, that is a multi-million-dollar bureaucratic disaster or get on with the business of consumer protection by enacting a simple, no-nonsense law like a Home Lemon Law. At the very least, a Lemon Law would give an incentive to builders to build a home right the first time, or buy it back, avoiding expensive legal action that TRCC presently encourages,” concluded Janet Ahmad.

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