LULAC Calls for Abolishment of TRCC to Assured New Homes are Built Correctly
It is LULAC’s intention to call on all Texas Legislators to abolish the TRCC and support legislation to regulate the homebuilding industry and assure all future new homebuyers that a home is built in compliance with HUD minimum property standards and the state adopted International Residential Code before it is sold. As National President of LULAC I stand in support of the rights all Americans to be assured that new homes are built correctly and protected by adequate consumer protection laws.  Be assured that new homebuyers will not be denied something so basis as decent housing for their hard earned dollars.

September 3, 2008

Sunset Advisory Commission
P.O. Box 13066
Austin , Texas 78711

Chairman Carl Isett:

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is concerned with the welfare and human rights of all peoples, particularly those of Latino heritage and the need to provide responsible affordable homeownership.

In Texas LULAC has witnessed a disturbing trend in substandard new home construction, which can be attributed to the lack of adequate inspections during construction, lack of effective new home warranty protection, home durability as well as lack of consumer redress for defective new home construction.  These chronic problems relate directly to documented non-compliance with local and HUD minimum property standards, and lack of proper warranty repairs that has adversely affected the habitability of dwellings and community stability.

LULAC community leaders in the course of advocacy and council with families have discovered Texas is grossly lacking when it comes to new homebuyer consumer protection laws. The industry-wide use of Binding Mandatory Arbitration (BMA) clauses in new homebuilder contracts and third party warranties further deny homebuyers their constitutional rights of holding a builder accountable through the courts.

After a review of the Sunset report on the Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC), LULAC has concluded this state agency imposes undue bureaucratic hardships, which adversely impacts all aggrieved homeowners especially minority families who struggle to make payments on their defectively built homes.

LULAC enthusiastically supports the Sunset Advisory Commission staff report conclusions:

• Current regulation of the residential construction industry is fundamentally flawed and does more harm than good. 
• No other regulatory agency has a program with such a potentially devastating effect on consumers’ ability to seek their own remedies.
• The Texas Residential Construction Commission fails to provide meaningful oversight and public protection because of fundamental structural flaws in the current regulatory approach. 
• Despite changes last Session ostensibly to strengthen the process by making builders subject to new penalties if they refuse to offer repair of a confirmed defect, the Commission still has no real power to require builders to make needed repairs. 
• Sunset staff concluded that anything short of a true regulatory program does more harm than good, and should be abolished. 
• Abolish the Texas Residential Construction Commission and repeal the Texas Residential Construction Commission Act.

Further it is LULAC’s intention to call on all Texas Legislators to abolish the TRCC and support legislation to regulate the homebuilding industry and assure all future new homebuyers that a home is built in compliance with HUD minimum property standards and the state adopted International Residential Code before it is sold.

These issues and the soaring foreclosures due to predatory lending are all contributing factors to the decline of the full enjoyment of homeownership and priority issues outlined in a LULAC Resolution unanimously passed by its National Board.  (See LULAC Resolution)

As National President of LULAC I stand in support of the rights all Americans to be assured that new homes are built correctly and protected by adequate consumer protection laws.  Be assured that new homebuyers will not be denied something so basis as decent housing for their hard earned dollars.

Sincerely, 
Rosa Rosales, National President