— PRESS RELEASE —
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE      Contact: Janet Ahmad  August 20,2008
                                                                                                   (210) 494-6404

 

Sunset Staff Recommends Abolishment of the Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC), Homebuilder Protection agency
 
 "Current regulation of the residential construction industry is fundamentally flawed and does more harm than good"

 

           Austin – Today consumer groups are praising the Sunset Advisory Commission for its candid assessment and recommendation to abolish the controversial builder protection agency known as the TRCC.

 

In 2006, the State Comptroller upon completing a review of a Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC) said, "Caveat emptor – let the buyer beware – is the motto of the unscrupulous.  It should not be the hallmark of state policy."  Today the Sunset Committee is the second state agency to confirm that TRCC and the state has failed to protect the public.  Confirming TRCC is the hallmark of bad state policy.

 

"The Sunset words ‘Abolish TRCC’ are powerful," said, Janet Ahmad, national president of Home Owners for Better Building.  "The report is a consumer victory and goes a long way in restoring confidence in our state elected officials to do the right thing for genuine consumer protection this next session."

 

Significant Sunset Advisory Commission conclusions are justifiably damaging:
· 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.

 

From its inception consumer groups recognized that TRCC served as a bureaucratic process to shielded the homebuilding industry from consumers who try to exercise their rights to hold incompetent and unscrupulous builders accountable.

 

"No other state in the nation has a public policy that poses a greater burden for shoddy home construction squarely on the backs of homeowners, like Texas.  Currently builders have no incentive to build homes right especially when industry controls a state agency and homeowners are forced into builder dominated binding mandatory arbitration (BMA). 

 

Texas officials must ensure that new homes are built right the first time or there will be consequences to pay if builders fail to do so.  Shouldn’t homebuyers have as much protection as they have when buying a new car?  It’s simple, a Home Lemon Law would give that incentive or the builder would be required to buy the home back.  Until then builders can and will cut corners to cheat the public." concluded Janet Ahmad

 

It's time for Texas to catch up with the rest of the country and regulate homebuilding.

 

Read the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission report: http://www.sunset.state.tx.us/81streports/trcc/trcc_sr.pdf



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