Amended Home Repair and Remodeling Act removes "unintended penalties"

An ISBA-inspired change to the Home Repair and Remodeling Act, signed into law July 12, codifies a line of cases holding that a contractor's failure to give a homeowner a consumer rights brochure or to use a written contract does not bar the contractor from suing the homeowner for money owed. Instead, the new law gives homeowners a less severe but more appropriate remedy -- the right to sue under the consumer fraud act. As Adam Whiteman wrote last February in the ISBA Real Estate Law newsletter, the original act had "the laudable goal of making sure that a contractor utilizes a written contract and provides a Consumer Rights Brochure to homeowners who engage them to undertake home remodeling work valued in excess of $1,000." But the act did not make clear that "the intended remedy for a violation of the Act was to be found under the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, " which led some courts "to impose wholly unintended penalties [against contractors] for even the most benign violations." The new law clears up the confusion.