The Renovation Trap

Public Policy Remedies

These suggestions are subject to revision
as we confer with industry leaders, members of law enforcement,
legislators, and other homeowners. Check back with us from time to time.

We believe enactment of laws that embody these principles is badly needed to protect consumers against predatory practices.

1. Real estate brokers and agents who recommend contractors to members of the public should be required, at the time of the recommendation, to give those members of the public the booklet Hiring a Contractor or Remodeler: What you should know http://www.lni.wa.gov/IPUB/625-084-000.pdf

2. Require evidence of competence from construction contractors before they are given permission to practice their trade. Automobile drivers, real estate agents, lawyers, and cosmetologists are among those who are required to take courses, pass examinations, or otherwise show competence before being licensed. Other licenses require no show of competence: For example, a license to work as a contractor or own a dog.

LICENSE means, “formal permission from a governmental or other constituted authority to do something, as to carry on some business or profession.” (Dictionary.com; similar definitions can be found in Black’s Law Dictionary.)

The International Building Code makes a statement of its purpose:

“The purpose of this Code is to establish the minimum requirements to safeguard the public health, safety, and welfare through structural strength, means of egress facilities, stability, sanitation, adequate light and ventilation, energy conservation and safety to life and property from fire and other hazards attributable to the built environment.”

Given the provable harm many contractors have done to the “built environment,” contractors should be required to show competence before they are allowed to practice their trade. But as our laws stand now, a construction contractor need only fill out the registration form, pay a filing fee, secure a bond, and get insurance (no requirement to insure the homeowner against faulty work). He then has the State’s OK to do business. That’s bizarre. Let’s fix it.

3. The people of Washington should call this proof of the competence and subsequent permission to do business in the State of Washington a construction contractor’s “license.”

4. It should be a gross misdemeanor for a construction contractor to seek or do business when unlicensed.

5. It should be a gross misdemeanor for others to promote or advertise the services of an unlicensed contractor.

6. Make it MANDATORY that this sign be prominently displayed in all Washington state jurisdictions that issue Building Permits.

Be wary of contractors who ask you to pick up the building permit. In most instances, the contractor is required to take out the permits. Permits are your protection and help ensure that work will meet local building codes.

See Hiring a Contractor or Remodeler: What you should know.

http://www.lni.wa.gov/IPUB/625-084-000.pdf

State law requires jurisdictions issuing Building Permits to check the standing of construction contractors doing the work. The Washington Department of Labor and Industries has seen many unlicensed contractors persuade homeowners to take out building permits in order to get around his law. In our case, a Windermere real estate agent and his contractor told us that the City of Redmond would “turn around Permits” differently for homeowners (“faster”), and that (b) the State of Washington would not charge tax on the renovation labor if we held the Permit. As we later discovered, both statements were untrue, but at the time we believed them and took out the Building Permit in our names. Thus the City of Redmond did not check the standing of the (unlicensed) contractor who was doing the work.

7. Require jurisdictions to deal only with the Permit holder or legal agent when performing inspections.

8. Make it mandatory for all Building Permits issued in Washington to state that will be doing the hands-on work. This person should be the homeowner himself, or if the homeowner intends to sub-contract, the name and license number of the sub-contractor(s).

9. Make the distribution of the Labor and Industries booklet Hiring a Contractor or Remodeler: What you should know mandatory to homeowners who are taking out their own Building Permit.

It costs only pennies to make copies of it. No person of good will would object.

10. Make it mandatory for all contractors to provide homeowners with a copy of Industries booklet Hiring a Contractor or Remodeler: What you should know, along with the required Notice to Customer (RCW 18.27.114). It costs only pennies to make copies of it. No contractor of good will would object.

11. Increase the contactor’s bond requirement to match the size of the contract. Thus the contractor doing small jobs for no more than $5000 is bonded for $5000, and the contractor undertaking 100K jobs is bonded for $100K. In that way, the small contractor is not given a hurdle he cannot cross, yet the large contractor has a bond on the scale of the damages for which he may be liable in case of problems with the job. This would be, in effect, a State-required performance bond.

12. Set up a board of arbitration operated by Washington State Department of Labor and Industries to review homeowner claims against the bonds and settle them. A $12,000 bond cannot be meaningfully administered by the county Superior Court, given the costs of legal fees (which most lawyers want paid up-front), the relative complexity of court procedure for pro se litigants, and scheduling delays.

13. Deny the “Public Duty Doctrine” as a defense in public liability suits. While counties and cities should NOT be held liable for a contractor’s work, they MUST be held liable for exercising due diligence in carrying out their contractual obligations and their public duty. The duty and obligation of cities and counties is to ensure that sub-standard housing is not erected, i.e., that housing meets Code.

When it can be shown that a city or county has not exercised due diligence in performing inspections in a workmanlike manner, cities and counties should refund the building permit charges homeowners have paid. There should be a ten-year statute of limitations on such claims.

14. In order to protect cities and counties from any “frivolous” claims, and to protect homeowners from cities and counties failing to perform inspections or performing them negligently and then claiming otherwise, city and county inspectors shall be required to use court approved digital cameras to record their inspections. Photographs of approved structures should be made part of the official record of inspection performance of the site.

15. The State of Washington should publicly recognize hardware, lumber, paint, and building supply outlets that voluntarily display a poster that reads:

16. The State of Washington should publicly recognize hardware, lumber, paint, and building supply outlets that voluntarily distribute the Labor and Industries booklet, Hiring a Contractor or Remodeler: What you should know.

17. During our renovations, the electrical sub-contractor “Automated Home Solutions” of Redmond (V&E Medical Imaging Services, Inc.) permitted unlicensed person to do wiring. Licensed tradesmen who allow unlicensed persons do the work for which a license is required should lose their license.

18. Make available to the public a list of all contractors who have been cited for doing contracting work without the required licenses. This list should reveal the present status of the contractor and whether he has corrected his situation.

19. Make available to the public a “repeat offenders” list, with mug shots. This list includes all persons who have been cited TWICE by Labor and Industries for working without required licenses. See http://renovationtrap.com/pfo/index.html for what happened to us.

20. Currently, many home purchases require the buyer to sign away his right to court access, restricting any and all action for redress to private arbitration, often specifying the arbitration company. This has three effects most deleterious to justice:

It creates a system of secret courts, to which public witness is not permitted, even through historical records. No history of similar cases or similar decisions by the same arbiter is available for public scrutiny.
It enables a large corporation to dictate the terms of settlement, with no history of adverse decisions against the corporation. No person, public, private, or media, is able to gain access to the history of those large corporations to accomplish the many purposes currently served by Lexus and Nexus in researching public courts.
No appeal is available from those arbitrations. Regardless of procedural error, new evidence, or any other cause for appeal that occur in public courts, in the same circumstance, those private courts do not permit appeal.

Hence, no contract in which an individual signs away his rights to public court should be honored by the courts. The courts should always be accessible to the public to seek justice and redress of wrongs.

21. Wherever deeds and records of property transfer are archived, the names of any real estate agents involved and the roles they played should be recorded with each transaction. Since the home inspection has become a legal action normal in home sales with licensed inspectors, the inspector's name should also be recorded with the property transfer. King County and some other counties provide an on-line