Home Buyer Protection is NEEDED Show the Oklahoma Legislature what you think! Oklahoma
Here is something you can do to help solve a growing problem in Oklahoma regarding shoddy construction and breach of warranty. Builders are not building homes right, and they are not being held to even minimum building codes in many instances. We need your voice to put a stop to this, and to protect our most expensive possession.
Home Buyers in Oklahoma currently have no practical way to research builders before buying. The Attorney General's "consumer protection division" does not make complaints on file publicly available. Neither does the Better Business Bureau. Lawyers are not interested in low paying cases so home owners defrauded by a builder in Oklahoma do not have the legal recourse they probably assume they do. Builders are adding mandatory arbitration clauses to their contracts, which takes away your right to use the courts at all, and the arbitration services are biased--they want repeat business from builders. The Home builders in all states lobby to protect their interests, not the interests of home owners.
If you want to see better consumer protection on the biggest purchase of your life, please go to: http://www.petitiononline.com/oqrc/petition.html and sign this online petition to show your support for ACCOUNTABILITY from the home building industry. (Be sure to click BOTH buttons on the site to submit the signature.) Thank you!
Cindy
Edmond, Oklahoma
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Cindy
Edmond,Oklahoma,
U.S.A.
As predicted, Right to Repair law returning to OK Legislature!
#4Author of original report
Wed, October 29, 2003
Builders are still pushing for a Right to Repair law in Oklahoma. It will be back in the 2004 session and builder lobbyists are working hard NOW to get this through. If you go to the Legislature site, "www.lsb.state.ok.us." to Text of Measures you can look up House Bill 1334. Identical versions exist in the senate. The bill says your letter notifying the builder of needed repairs is not admissible as evidence in your case. It also says this law would have to be followed exactly including a required certified letter to your builder. If you don't follow the law, your case is thrown out, period. Can't prove you followed it if your evidence that you DID is inadmissible.
The law is NOT consumer friendly and there is no reason to expect it would be, becaue it is written by builders, for builder protection. Please write or call your state representative and senator and tell them home buyers don't need any more erosion of their consumer protection on a house! Please consider going to the OK Capitol in person to speak up publicly about this issue. Don't assume one or two people will be able to take care of this...we need NUMBERS of you down at the capitol!
Thanks!
Cindy
Edmond,Oklahoma,
U.S.A.
House Bill 1334 was killed in committee
#4Author of original report
Sun, March 09, 2003
Thankfully this bill never made it out of committee. In a rare display of a politician who put her constituents, and the citizens of Oklahoma, ahead of the money contributed by the home building industry, the committee chairman decided not to let the bill proceed. She said it was one-sided, basically. We hope that we can continue to keep this "right to repair" type bill from passing here. The Nationl Association of Home Builders is trying to get such bills passed in all states. We know the bill will be back, it's not really a dead issue. In states it has passed in it hurts consumers and helps bad builders.
Cindy
Edmond,Oklahoma,
U.S.A.
Speak out or lose ALL your rights!
#4Author of original report
Tue, January 28, 2003
Please call and write your senator and representative in Oklahoma to oppose House Bill 1334 which is sponsored by builders. They will take away what little consumer protection you have if you let them.
We need MORE stringent laws concerning construction defects and breach of warranty, not less. This is fraud being committed by home builders and it costs home owners many thousands to fix or to fight. Codes are NOT enforced on builders, do not rely on the city to make sure your house is built right and has all the material you paid for and that is required for minimum standards.
Do not be duped by builders claims that "everyone" is suing builders over minor issues or that they're profiting from lawsuits. Oklahoma laws do not even allow those kind of awards for this type of case, in the few that ever get as far as court. Most are deprived of their right to sue by the arbitration clause in their contract. Most people cannot afford to sue no matter how valid their case is or how much their damage is. Builders are LYING when they tell you this bill will make housing affordable...it will do nothing but take away your rights to get what you paid for.
If you do not speak up, builders, and the politicians they buy, will continue to smirk and say this is not a problem. If you do not speak up, you are PART of the problem. Go to http://www.lsb.state.ok.us/ and click on text of measures, then Introduced under House to read HB 1334. Contact the senators and members of the house of respresentatives and demand they stop letting the builders tell them to erode our rights. It's the consumers that pay the politicians salaries, and they're supposed to be working for US, not crooked corporations that wish to have more protection form consumers when they cheat them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.