Phone "Survey" Revealed?
Remember my entry about the wacky, skewed telephone survey that I participated in last month?
Looks like it might have been in response to this: SB 5550 2007-08 Senator Brian Weinstein's "homebuyers' rights bill" that would protect homebuyers against shoddy construction. As someone who bought a new home and who has already had to have the builder or representatives of the builder come in and do warranty work (including installing pumps in the crawlspace under the house and installing a crucial wire integral to the hydro-heating system that was not installed in any of the homes in this phase of the development) and who has talked to my neighbors and found out they've had problems ranging from the builders forgetting to put insulation in the front of their homes or installed piping that was not to code and has since been found to be defective, I'm ALL in favor of protections for homebuyers.
Of course, as I also told the push-poll people, the real option is that we're screwed anyway. If the defects or shoddy work aren't covered, the homeowner pays. If the builders are held responsible for using substandard materials, "forgetting" important steps during construction, or otherwise turning over shoddy products, they raise a hue and cry about being squeezed or about "frivolous" lawsuits and the pass the costs of their court losses or their increased insurance on to the consumer and/or further press the sub-contractors who do the labor to work faster and cheaper to make up their losses anyway.
And yet if a prominent politician needs the backing of the BIAW membership (which predictably opposed empowering homeowners under the guise of uniting "those in the building industry in Washington state in their fight against a government that has made this industry among the most regulated in the nation") they're not going to want to piss off the builder's lobby by allowing this kind of bill to become law. SB 5550 passed the Senate 30 to 19 but was tabled in the House and some people are pissed.
Looks like it might have been in response to this: SB 5550 2007-08 Senator Brian Weinstein's "homebuyers' rights bill" that would protect homebuyers against shoddy construction. As someone who bought a new home and who has already had to have the builder or representatives of the builder come in and do warranty work (including installing pumps in the crawlspace under the house and installing a crucial wire integral to the hydro-heating system that was not installed in any of the homes in this phase of the development) and who has talked to my neighbors and found out they've had problems ranging from the builders forgetting to put insulation in the front of their homes or installed piping that was not to code and has since been found to be defective, I'm ALL in favor of protections for homebuyers.
Of course, as I also told the push-poll people, the real option is that we're screwed anyway. If the defects or shoddy work aren't covered, the homeowner pays. If the builders are held responsible for using substandard materials, "forgetting" important steps during construction, or otherwise turning over shoddy products, they raise a hue and cry about being squeezed or about "frivolous" lawsuits and the pass the costs of their court losses or their increased insurance on to the consumer and/or further press the sub-contractors who do the labor to work faster and cheaper to make up their losses anyway.
And yet if a prominent politician needs the backing of the BIAW membership (which predictably opposed empowering homeowners under the guise of uniting "those in the building industry in Washington state in their fight against a government that has made this industry among the most regulated in the nation") they're not going to want to piss off the builder's lobby by allowing this kind of bill to become law. SB 5550 passed the Senate 30 to 19 but was tabled in the House and some people are pissed.