More bitter fights expected over building defects

Monday, Oct. 9, 2000 | 10:36 a.m.

Attorneys, builders, homeowners and policymakers gathered at an all-day seminar on home construction defects Friday -- but few heard what they wanted to hear.

Instead, what they heard is that the various stakeholders on the issue will have a lot to fight over during the coming session of the Nevada Legislature. State Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, promised to bring legislation forward that would make it easier for building companies to do repairs on problem homes.

Schneider said it is important to fix the problems rather than allow homeowners and trial attorneys to take legal settlements or judgments, then leave the property without a repair. That can pass on problems to future homeowners for generations, he said.

He said lawsuits are driving construction companies out of business and eliminating affordable homes.

"Entry-level homes are done," Schneider said. "They are no longer under construction because they have been sued out of business.

"We need to fix that because that's what it's all about -- entry-level housing with our service industry," he said.

State Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, also spoke, giving the mixed crowd a review of the sometimes bitter political dogfights around the issue in the Legislature. She said the next session in Carson City will be hard fought -- despite contentious debate in 1995, when the first overall construction-defect law was passed, and in 1999, when a compromise reform bill was passed that failed to deliver all that home builders wanted.

"This issue is going to come back, despite all that effort, all that animosity," Titus said.

She said the sustained high rate of growth in the Las Vegas Valley, with about 20,000 homes going up annually, means that new homes will have problems and the issue will remain volatile.

Titus didn't rule out her support of a reform bill, but she said her primary consideration will be for the homeowner.

Trial attorneys at the seminar said Schneider's ideas for reform won't fix the problem. They said that homeowners only turn to the courts after months or years of fruitless dealings with the construction companies.

Nancy Quon, a prominent trial lawyer and one of the speakers at the seminar, said homeowners are making the single largest investments of their lives, only to buy homes that are often dangerously riddled with problems.

"Most homeowners have called their contractors 1,000 times before they call an attorney," she said.

Contractors have the opportunity to repair, Quon said. "They just don't take it."

Quon said trial attorneys will fight to preserve the status quo in the next legislative session, which begins in February.

But home builders at the seminar said they will fight for changes in the law.

"That's something I've wanted from day one -- an opportunity to fix real problems," said Jim Gair of J.M. Gair and Associates. Gair said he has been locked for more than three years in a single defect lawsuit.

"I can't set foot on the property," he said.

But homeowners at the seminar said the builders are the problem.

Dennis Grissom is a former builder, now a homeowner and a consultant to homeowners who have or suspect construction defects.

He said the companies usually ignore opportunities to fix problems early on and head off a lawsuit. The contractors also fail to fix a problem when they do come back.

His wife, Kathryn Grissom, said contractors have refused to do major structural repairs to their house.

"We haven't had any luck, and we're still in the warranty period."