{"id":71933,"date":"2017-03-07T15:05:17","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T22:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/right-to-repair-bill-dies-in-colorado-house-committee\/"},"modified":"2017-03-07T22:05:17","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T22:05:17","slug":"right-to-repair-bill-dies-in-colorado-house-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/right-to-repair-bill-dies-in-colorado-house-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Right to repair bill dies in Colorado House committee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A bill aimed at resolving Colorado\u2019s construction defects litigation issues died Wednesday in a House committee on a 6-3 vote.<\/span>SHAUN STANLEY\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 The third in a series of bills aimed at resolving Colorado\u2019s construction defects litigation issues was killed Wednesday night in a House committee on a 6-3 party line vote.<\/p>\n

House Bill 1169, which would have required homeowners give \u201cunfettered access\u201d to contractors that opt to conduct repairs on faulty construction, was seen as an attack on owners\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Harris, president of Build Our Homes Right, said his organization opposed the bill because it took away homeowners\u2019 ability to reject repairs that they felt were inadequate and fell short of resolving the reason for the increased number of lawsuits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill doesn\u2019t address the problem of substandard and defective construction, which created the large number of legal claims,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, the real question is \u2018why is the building industry unwilling to stand behind their product?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill would have required contractors to submit a report on the scope of the repairs and would have allowed them to settle with homeowners rather than pursuing restoration, all of which they can do under current statute.<\/p>\n

Bill sponsor Rep. Tim Leonard, R-Evergreen<\/a>, said he understood homeowners\u2019 frustrations, but he saw the bill differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just gives the right for both parties to be able to talk to one another, and that\u2019s what\u2019s missing,\u201d Leonard said.<\/p>\n

But current law allows for contractors to have such dialogs with homeowners without requiring them to do repairs.<\/p>\n

Leonard added this is the first \u201cright to repair\u201d bill introduced in Colorado, and attorneys who have worked with him say this \u201cmust be part of the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t the answer, but If you\u2019re going to have this pie it\u2019s got to be an ingredient,\u201d Leonard said.<\/p>\n

Democrats on the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, the so called \u201ckill committee,\u201d did not agree, however, and they killed the bill.<\/p>\n

Despite the vote, Leonard said it was important to get everyone to discuss the problem facing Colorado\u2019s affordable-housing market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is recognized, and the problem is that basically young people and young families are finding it nearly impossible to buy their first home, and this is a phenomenon that everybody recognizes and everybody also recognizes it\u2019s because (of) the economics,\u201d Leonard said.<\/p>\n

The drop in condo construction is attributed to the rise in insurance rates stemming from the lawsuit risks.<\/p>\n

Many local jurisdictions have passed ordinances to try and remedy the issue, including Durango, with little effect.<\/p>\n

Experts say there must be a statewide rule to bring certainty to the market.<\/p>\n

But any such statewide solution will have to wait until another day.<\/p>\n

lperkins@ durangoherald.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Critics say measure would have stripped rights from homeowners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,14,459,28,453],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-state-house-of-representatives","tag-construction-and-property","tag-headlines","tag-housing-and-urban-planning"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71933"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}