Salazar’s home-building solution picked apart

By Peggy Lowe
Rocky Mountain News

Attorney General Ken Salazar’s compromise on the controversial home-building bill is all but gone.

A House-Senate committee on Tuesday make significant changes to House Bill 1161, a measure that has split lawmakers on legal protections for consumers vs. legal protections for corporations.

The measure would limit lawsuits brought by property owners- a change the Colorado Association of Home Builders says is needed to cut the escalating costs of insurance.

Salazar’s compromise, approved by the Senate, was promoted as a balance between builder and consumer interests.

On Tuesday, the six-member House-Senate committee kept a piece of Salazar’s plan: a $250,000 limit on treble damages awarded under Colorado’s current consumer protection law if a homeowner proves the builder clearly acted fraudulently and intentionally.

The version passed by the House would have made it nearly impossible to get treble damages.

But the panel on Tuesday removed a homeowner’s ability to get probable damages- a monetary award made on the basis that damage might occur in the future.

For instance, if an engineer’s report predicts a house will fall off a hill, a homeowner could get probable damages.

The panel also added commercial property owners and government entities to the bill.

Scott Sullan , an attorney for homeowners, said that means all property owners’ rights have been limited, including farmers, ranchers and owners of shopping malls, apartment complexes and water ditches.

“This is a frontal assault on their property rights,” Sullan said.

Rob Nanfelt, a lobbyist for the Colorado Association of Home Builders, said the bill wouldn’t allow probable damages.

But homeowners can still get actual damages, for instance, when their house falls off the hill.

Nanfelt said the measure is needed because builders’ insurance rates have increased 300 percent in recent years.

“It’s driving the medium and small guys out of business,” he said. “It’s not a perfect bill, it’s not a great bill, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

Salazar was still studying the legislation and didn’t want to make a comment, said Ken Lane, his spokesman.