Arizona Propositions 100 and 201 - protect our homes and prevent lawsuit abuse

Vote Yes on 100-Protect Our Homes

Proposition 100 not only collected enough signatures to get on the Arizona ballot, it also broke the previous initiative record by more than 70,000 signatures!  Over 375,000 signatures were turned in-and only 230,000 were needed.  Proposition 100 proposes an amendment to the Arizona Constitution which will forbid the imposition of a transfer tax at the sale of a property.

A home is often a person's most important asset and a transfer tax amounts to double taxation and punishes the homeowner by decreasing overall equity.  No wonder it has such strong support.

To find additional information, or if you are interested in getting a yard sign or  bumper stickers, visit www.protectourhomes.com.

Vote No on Proposition 201

Being involved in the business of home buying and selling on a daily basis, we have seen construction defects in homes.  What may not be well known is the fact that there are existing laws in place to deal with this.  An Arizona Statute currently provides that builders are responsible for repairing structural defects up to eight years after the home is built.  The current "Notice to Cure" law allows for the homeowner to notify a builder of a defect and the builder has 90 days to correct it.  This allows disputes to be handled out of court quickly, and often less expensively.

Touted as a "Homeowners' Bill of Rights," some parts of Proposition 201 that are questionable include:

• It encourages frivolous lawsuits by allowing "prospective buyers" to sue
• A seller cannot recover attorney's fees-even if lawsuit is frivolous
• Raises the cost for everyone by requiring attorneys to be hired and prohibiting resolutions outside of court.  This may lengthen the time to complete repairs while the dispute is going through the legal system
• The arguments in favor of 201 say individual homeowners (sellers) are not affected, but the actual verbiage regarding sellers and improvements on a home does not seem clear enough to protect individual homeowners (sellers)
• If you're an agent, the way the definition of seller is written, we can be lumped in there, too.

Apparently, it was written by a trial lawyer in California without public comment.  If it was specifically written to target homebuilders, it should say so.  Instead it is vague enough that home builders, homeowners and real estate agents could all be target of lawsuits with little protection from frivolous suits and no ability to recover costs if we win.