Indiana - Proposed Legislation and Letter from Rep

[Gloria Simpson]

I could not find anything on this message board about the following. Anyone aware of this information? In a nutshell, legislation was introduced during the past session to eliminate the sellers disclosure statement. A letter from Senator Brent Steele indicates why he introduced the bill. It speaks for itself. He wants to be ready when he introduces it again. As he stated, he wants both industries (Mortgage and Realtors) to be on the same page when he reintroduces the bill. Input from Indiana and Illinois inspectors licensed in Indiana is needed. The bankers and realtors are forming a plan. Home Inspectors need to voice an objection.
I found this information on www.gniar.com, our area realtor association.

[Ken Jones]

Home Inspector's are not even being consulted!

He is relegating realtors to used car salesmen, putting all liability on the home inspector. He says a home inspection is easier than looking at a used car!

Why not create a better disclosure statement.

This law is selfserving, He must have been sued.


Senator Brent Steele email s44@in.gov
www.in.gov/legislative/homepages/s44/

Indiana State Senator, District 44
200 W. Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
(317) 232-9400
(800) 382-9467

[Gloria Simpson]

I think you are right. I went to his website and looked around, and he says NOTHING about SB352 I am looking up some more stuff, such as litigation. He mentions 2 cases. I wonder how many cases in which the buyer won?

[David Nice]

Talk about Neanderthal and a bill that does nothing for consumers and everything for agents and sellers.

I would get consumer groups and mortgage companies involved in opposing this bill. Also I think that NACHI ASHI, NAHI and other inspector organizations would all come out against this bill.

Never mind that this guy is also a licensed RE broker. Not only should he NOT be introducing such a bill, he should recuse himself from voting on any RE related issues as he has a clear conflict of interest.

[Ken Jones]

Senator Brent Steele email s44@in.gov

Send this info to everybody you can think of. I have sent my email against this bill to the Senator.

[Ken Jones]

Dear Senator Steele.
I am writing this email in opposition to your proposed Senate Bill No. 352.
I have read your letter to Real Estate Associations asking for input. I think your proposal is a misdirected, self-serving piece of legislation.
Coming from your background, I can understand that you want to pass all liability off of the Realtor shoulder. After all, in your eyes you see a real estate transaction as a used car sales, and the Realtor as a used car salesman. You cite the number of lawsuits being caused by disgruntled buyers, forgetting about the lawyers that are more than pleased to sue anybody for anything.
What I don’t agree with is your inferring a home inspection is easier that looking at a used car. That analogy just shows lack of any knowledge of the home inspection process and the home inspection license and ongoing training requirements.
Not including home inspector comments in your floating of this bill, shows that you are only concerned with your personal business, not all the people in Indiana. Certainly your bill is not for the protection of home buyers and sellers.
Since you’re a Broker, I’m surprised you don’t want to approach the problem by rewriting the disclosure statement, so it is a useful document. You don’t seem to want to train realtors so they take the disclosure statement seriously with their clients. How about working to get a better explanation as to what a “Major Defect” is in Indiana’s MLS contract.
As President of Tri-State Association of Home Inspectors here in Northwest Indiana, I will make myself and any of our members to answer any questions you may have.
Thank You

[James H. Bushart]

If your legislature in Indiana works like ours in Missouri and other states, you will find that this senator is not expressing his own ideas...but has been lobbied to produce this bill.

Go to your local media. Let them know what the special interests are trying to pull on the consumer. Get your letters to your editors and get the local television station consumer reporters on this right away. Watch how much fun it is to filet your local realtors' associations.

[Kevin Luce]

Here is some information on our dear Senator Steele.

http://www.vote-smart.org/bio.php?can_id=4712

[Gloria Simpson]

Our Letter to Senator Brent Steel

Dear Senator Brent Steele,
I would like to express my opposition of reintroducing SB352 next year. I find the elimination of the real estate disclosure statement and the reasoning behind it, a grave disservice to residents, as well as potential home buyers in Indiana. You state in your letter to The Greater Northwest Indiana Association of Realtors that "the form is deficient for many situations." Wouldn't you agree, in the interest of the consumer, this would be remedied by updating the form to meet the needs of both the buyer and seller? You also state that "despite the law, there are some lawyers who continue to litigate and the seller has to hire a lawyer and hopefully get the case dismissed." Yet further down in your article, you state that the buyer should sue their inspector's insurance, should some defect. (possibly covered up by the seller) be revealed after purchase Further, you state "in our litigating society and buyer remorse being what it is, the industry is plagued with law suits that need not be." I believe sir,you are contradicting yourself. Eliminating the disclosure statement would not reduce frivolous lawsuits. It will only filter the lawsuits, frivolous and otherwise, to the home inspector. Again, a disservice to the consumer, as home inspectors will have to increase their prices to cover the expense of ever rising insurance costs, and pass it on to the consumer.To continue, you state that "If the inspection reveals a problem then the problem will be fixed before the sale, or the price will be negotiated to account for the problem." Further down you state "Quibble and negotiate all you want or walk away from the deal," Yet the MLS contract clearly states that a buyer cannot back out of a deal unless there is a major defect, not a satisfactory inspection. If a buyer is not satisfied with the inspection, they cannot quibble, they cannot negotiate, they must purchase based on the definition of major defect, which is open to vast interpretation in the real estate industry.
I have attached Indiana's Minimum Standards of Competent Practice and Code of Ethics for Home Inspectors for your intense review. This will give you a better understanding of the Home Inspection Process, and that you may understand that Inspectors are generalist, inspecting a home's condition on the day of the inspection. Only the disclosure statement can educate the buyer of conditions past, as well as conditions not covered by a home inspection.
On a personal note, I would like to express my opinion to your statement, "I would argue a used car is a lot harder to inspect than a house and can have hidden latent defects that can't be found by a mechanic." As an Indiana Licensed Home Inspector, taking 2.5 hours to inspect a home, not lived in by my client (test driven) to do a visual inspection, on an average 2000 square foot lived in home, is, in fact, a lot harder then inspecting a used car. Until you have been in the trenches with Inspectors, I find this comment to be unwarranted.
Lastly, I would like to comment on your statement that "as complex as real estate sales have become, we could cut out a ton of paperwork, worry, and bring the sale of real estate into modern transaction free of expensive litigation which drives up the costs to all professionals in the chain of the transaction." We, the home inspector, are apart of the professionals in the chain of the transaction, so this statement is false, because as I previously mentioned, you want to filter all litigation to the home inspector.
My conclusion is this; SB352 will only protect the agents, and select others in the real estate industry from litigation. It is not meant to protect the consumer and residents of Indiana, and for that very reason I must voice my objections.

[David Nice]

Needs some proofreading and editing.

[Gloria Simpson]

Thanks Dave, I havent sent it yet, waiting for input. I have done the spell and grammer check. What do you suggest?

[William J. Decker]

This "Senator" is a lawyer, an RE broker and a mortgage broker.

This is an obvious conflict of interest.

[David Nice]

Originally Posted by wdecker

This "Senator" is a lawyer, an RE broker and a mortgage broker.

This is an obvious conflict of interest.

Yes, forget the relative merits or lack of them in the proposed bill. This bill will serve only those 3 careers and he is using this bill to do so.