Same as last year:::
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/growth/article231450098.html
Things got worse when her builder stopped returning calls and later went out of business. She was left with little choice but to pay for repairs herself.
Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/growth/article231450098.html#storylink=cpy
An evaluation of the new-home construction industry by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram shows a system that is weighted heavily toward builders and against home buyers like Huckaby. The evaluation showed:
- Anyone can set themselves up as a home building contractor in Texas, where there is no licensing process and there are no minimum training standards.
- Purchase contracts favor the builder on newly-built homes, and the law also favors contractors when home buyers seek recourse for problems.
- The municipal inspection process, the only oversight of home builders, covers minimum construction standards. Inspectors are spread thin, and the work is often done by third-party contractors. In some areas, such as unincorporated portions of Tarrant County, municipal inspections are not even required.
City hires third-party inspectors
Randle Harwood, Fort Worth planning and development director, acknowledged in an interview that the bare wires and missing weep holes should have been caught by the private-sector vendor — a company known as Metro Code Analysis LLC — that the city used for the inspections on Huckaby’s home in late 2017 and early to mid-2018.
The Star-Telegram requested city reports from the inspection of Huckaby’s home.
The records show that inspectors from Metro Code visited Huckaby’s home 14 times between Sept. 21, 2017, and April 17, 2018.
The inspection reports showed the date of each inspection and the name of the inspector, but provided little detail about the inspector’s observations.
All 14 inspections resulted in a passing grade.
Practices vary by state
In other states, the requirements vary widely, according to a list of requirements kept by Next Insurance, a company that focuses on selling policies to small businesses.
Additional info::::
We also requested to ride-along with Fort Worth home inspectors for a day, to get an idea of what their jobs are like, but were told by city officials that it would be too difficult to arrange because the inspectors’ schedules were so busy and varied. We learned that roughly nine of every 10 residential inspections in the city is performed by a third-party vendor hired by the city.
We researched changes that have been made to state law regarding new home construction, and found numerous actions by the Texas Legislature between 1989 and 2009 that reduced regulations for builders — some of whom are well-known for making large contributions to political campaigns.
During the same time period, state laws were changed to make it more difficult for home buyers to initiate a legal action against a builder.
Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/growth/article231450098.html#storylink=cpy
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/growth/article231450098.html
Things got worse when her builder stopped returning calls and later went out of business. She was left with little choice but to pay for repairs herself.
Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/growth/article231450098.html#storylink=cpy
An evaluation of the new-home construction industry by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram shows a system that is weighted heavily toward builders and against home buyers like Huckaby. The evaluation showed:
- Anyone can set themselves up as a home building contractor in Texas, where there is no licensing process and there are no minimum training standards.
- Purchase contracts favor the builder on newly-built homes, and the law also favors contractors when home buyers seek recourse for problems.
- The municipal inspection process, the only oversight of home builders, covers minimum construction standards. Inspectors are spread thin, and the work is often done by third-party contractors. In some areas, such as unincorporated portions of Tarrant County, municipal inspections are not even required.
City hires third-party inspectors
Randle Harwood, Fort Worth planning and development director, acknowledged in an interview that the bare wires and missing weep holes should have been caught by the private-sector vendor — a company known as Metro Code Analysis LLC — that the city used for the inspections on Huckaby’s home in late 2017 and early to mid-2018.
The Star-Telegram requested city reports from the inspection of Huckaby’s home.
The records show that inspectors from Metro Code visited Huckaby’s home 14 times between Sept. 21, 2017, and April 17, 2018.
The inspection reports showed the date of each inspection and the name of the inspector, but provided little detail about the inspector’s observations.
All 14 inspections resulted in a passing grade.
Practices vary by state
In other states, the requirements vary widely, according to a list of requirements kept by Next Insurance, a company that focuses on selling policies to small businesses.
Additional info::::
We also requested to ride-along with Fort Worth home inspectors for a day, to get an idea of what their jobs are like, but were told by city officials that it would be too difficult to arrange because the inspectors’ schedules were so busy and varied. We learned that roughly nine of every 10 residential inspections in the city is performed by a third-party vendor hired by the city.
We researched changes that have been made to state law regarding new home construction, and found numerous actions by the Texas Legislature between 1989 and 2009 that reduced regulations for builders — some of whom are well-known for making large contributions to political campaigns.
During the same time period, state laws were changed to make it more difficult for home buyers to initiate a legal action against a builder.
Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/growth/article231450098.html#storylink=cpy
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