Homebuilder watchdog agency could close next year
The Texas Residential Construction Commission appears to be doomed. The agency was supposed to be a way for thousands of Texas homeowners to get their complaints against builders resolved. Instead, many homeowners felt they were being regulated instead of the builders. View Video Report

The Examiner: Timely Demise
TRCC is currently at death's door in Austin as lawmakers in the Senate showed little appetite for extending the life of the controversial organization created by the legislature in 2003 at the behest of Bob Perry and other home builders...A significant contributing factor in TRCC's demise was the persistent testimony of homeowners who ran into serious problems after they had purchased new homes, only to find that TRCC consistently took the side of the builders over the buyers... Two women from Southeast Texas - Marcia Kushner of Jersey Village and Dorina Corrente of Sugarland - became regular visitors to the state capitol in Austin over a period of years to tell their horror stories about the builders they believe hid behind the TRCC to avoid fixing the defects that plagued their not-inexpensive new houses...Corrente in particular was singled out for harsh treatment, first from homebuilder D.R. Horton and most egregiously by Duane Waddill, executive director of TRCC. When she testified at a hearing in Austin before the House Building and Industry Committee on March 23 of this year about her on-going struggle with the homebuilder, Waddill sought to dismiss her complaints and assailed her credibility by suggesting from the. podium that she was mentally unstable and that D.R. Horton had to obtain "a restraining order against Mrs. Corrente to keep her off their property."...the charge he leveled against Corrente was a lie.

Dallas Morning News: Senate adds amendment that would kill Texas Residential Construction Commission
The Senate just passed 31-0 its so-called safety net bill that will allow agencies subject to sunset review this session to continue for two years, even if their bill authorizing a bill continuation does not pass. Of the 25 or so agencies under review, only a handful have seen their continuation bills pass both chambers. Under law, if those bills don't pass, they go out of business -- include another bill provides them a temporary lifeline. But the Texas Residential Construction Commission won't be among the agencies afforded that extension, at least not according to the bill that just passed the Senate. Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, added an amendment that would leave out of the safety net that commission, and instead shut it down after this session.

Dallad Morning News: Residential Construction Commission: Circling the drain? Homeowners groups sent out victory press releases this evening, saying lawmakers had decided to abolish the oft-criticized Texas Residential Construction Commission. Not. So. Fast. True, the agency may be circling the drain. Though the House passed legislation to drastically reform the state's homebuilding agency, the bill won't make it up for a vote in the Senate. That means the agency - which was up for review this year - will be phased out unless lawmakers give it a two-year extension.

Houston Chronicle - Home panel faces uphill fight
“The (legislative) members have pretty well spoken, and it’s probably in the public’s best interest to do a systematic wind-down of the agency,” Hegar said...Friday was a deadline for the bill to have been voted on by a Senate committee in order for it to be scheduled for Senate floor debate. Senate Business & Commerce Chairman Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, said he didn’t schedule the bill for a hearing because builders and consumer advocates could not agree on what to do to improve the agency. “It’s been a war zone the last two years,” said Fraser.

Express-News: Panel that took heat from homeowners likely won’t survive
The Texas Residential Construction Commission, highly criticized by the homeowners it was meant to protect, appears headed toward its demise because Senate lawmakers don't have the votes to keep the agency alive... “I'll wave it good-by with a big smile,” said Janet Ahmad of San Antonio, president of Homeowners for Better Building...The Sunset Commission staff report last year said the agency is “fundamentally flawed” and does more harm than good for consumers. The report said that only 12 percent of cases where the state had sent in inspectors to review alleged defects have resulted in a “satisfactory offer or repair or compensation over the life of the program.”