Dear Members of the House Committee on Business, Commerce, and Labor,

I am writing to you about House Bill 2835, An Act Enacting The Homeowner Warranty Act, which was submitted by Representative Ray Merrick.

I understand from a newspaper article that you have decided not to work on this bill in this legislative session because of lack of time.

Please reconsider your decision and do what is necessary to get this bill enacted this year. I am confident that if it means enough to you and your constituents that you can figure out a way to do this.

First I want to say, I am very fortunate. The house I own here in Johnson County, KS, is well built and has presented no problems. An acquaintance of mine is a developer and home builder who takes enormous pride in his work. He started from scratch building individual homes and now is building his own subdivision. So I know from personal experience just how fortunate we in Kansas are with the quality of home building.

Many of you are involved in commercial activities related to the building trades, so you too know how many builders and developers do a good job and take pride in their work.

I assume you also know, as I do, that there are some developers and home builders who build shoddy homes, apparently do not take pride in their work and then, having stuck a homeowner with a poorly built home, refuse to correct the problems. In fact, rather than correct the problem, they will threaten the homebuyer, go to court, try to silence the homeowner. They hurt the homeowner and they hurt the reputations of the honest developers and builders.

The builder I mentioned above was motivated to build quality homes because when he first moved to Kansas and had a home built for him, he discovered all the shoddy practices that were taking place from the beginning. After getting no response from his builder, he went in and corrected one problem with dry wall himself. The next day he found obscenities scrawled across the walls of his home by the builder or his subcontractors.

Many of you may have heard about the recent horror stories by homebuyers on the television news, the Kansas City Star, and the Johnson County Sun. Some people have lost their life savings, been bankrupted, and still have a miserably built home on their hands.

You have in your hands the ability to help your constituents who find themselves in this situation by passing HB 2835. You should do so. The bill is not perfect, but it is a good start.

Sincerely,
Bob Phillips
16315 Dearborn Drive
Stilwell, Kansas 66085