EDITORIAL
The state is looking out for home builders, not buyers

EDITORIAL BOARD

Thursday, January 26, 2006

In theory, at least, having a Texas Residential Construction Commission should be an effective way to resolve construction disputes between home builders and consumers.

A truly neutral but expert agency could quickly sort out frivolous complaints from a home buyer but nail truly shoddy work by a builder. And it could help resolve close calls without the time and expense of hiring lawyers and holding trials.

But such effectiveness was not the primary goal of home builders when they got the Texas Legislature to create the commission in 2003 over the opposition of consumer groups.

The builders' primary goal was to protect themselves from lawsuits filed by unhappy home buyers.

Thanks to the strong political influence of such home builders as Bob Perry and Dick Weekley, both of Houston, and to the $5 million in political contributions ($3.1 million from Bob Perry alone) to state candidates, parties and political action committees in the 2002 election cycle, the builders got the commission they wanted. The agency can force a home buyer to jump through more bureaucratic hoops before going to court, but it has little effective power to make an errant builder correct defects.

Gov. Rick Perry (no relation to Bob Perry) cooperated fully with the builders in his appointments to the commission. Even the three members (out of nine total) who are supposed to represent the public interest have ties to the building industry. Another four seats on the commission are assigned by legislation to the building industry; another must be an engineer; and still another must be an architect or construction inspector.

At the request of a Republican legislator, Rep. Todd Smith of Euless, state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn has completed a study of the commission that Strayhorn says shows that it "functions as a builder protection agency."

The dominance of builders' interests on the commission itself is not the agency's only weakness, as documented by the comptroller's study:

•Home builders must register with the commission, but if they refuse, the commission cannot take action on its own. Instead, it must go to the attorney general. As of June, only six such cases had been referred to the attorney general, though the commission told the comptroller that another 115 would be referred soon.

•The commission has no authority to punish builders who violate its construction standards or to make them fix defects.

•In a survey of 102 home buyers who had complained to the agency (out of 257 who had been asked to respond), 86 percent had a construction defect that had been confirmed by an independent inspector but not fixed by the builder. (By the way, there aren't many frivolous complaints; the commission reported that 93 percent of its inspections found at least one construction defect.)

The commission doesn't appear to be entirely one-sided. For example, it has a new process that requires builders found to have a construction defect to say how they intend to fix it. And it also is making it easier for home buyers to get information from the commission and seek its help. But the fundamental problem with the commission is that it was designed to be weak.

Strayhorn — a Republican who is running as an independent for governor against Perry — said she would abolish the commission. Short of abolishment, the Legislature at least should strengthen the commission's power to take action against builders who fail to repair construction defects and violate the commission's performance standards.

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/01/26builders_edit.html