Statement from Sen. Weinstein on potential compromise

OLYMPIA – With just over 24 hours left until the end of the 2008 Legislative session, Senator Brian Weinstein, D-Mercer Island, offered what he believes to be an extremely fair and very modest proposal to Speaker Chopp in response to the Speaker’s Three-Point Home Construction Plan.

Today, I communicated to the Speaker’s staff that I’ll agree in principle to Speaker Chopp’s three-point proposal with some minor technical and substantive changes, if he’ll agree to allow a homebuyer to bring a legal action against a builder who has violated a building code after giving the builder notice and an opportunity to fix it.

A builder is already required to comply with building codes, but Washington law affords a homebuyer no rights to enforce the building code. This is a bare minimal right that all Washingtonians must agree a homebuyer should have.

I know the Speaker is a man of his word, and I would only do this with a good faith representation from him that he will work diligently to expand the right of access to the courts to aggrieved homebuyers in the next Legislative Session.

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