Posted: | September 15, 2015 10:53 AM |
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From: | Senator Robert M. Tomlinson |
To: | All Senate members |
Subject: | Updates to the Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act |
Please join me in co-sponsoring legislation to amend the Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act (Act 132 of 2008). When I first introduced the HICPA, the Commonwealth was in dire need of a law to require home improvement contractors to register with the Office of Attorney General, set forth home improvement contract requirements, define home improvement fraud, and provide for penalties against home improvement contractors who commit home improvement fraud or do not fulfill their contractual obligations. In the last year alone, the Office of Attorney General has mediated 3,149 consumer complaints, issued 650 warning letters to contractors for failing to follow the law, opened 143 investigations and filed 37 legal actions. There is a growing need to strengthen and enhance HICPA by making it a violation of the act to provide false, incomplete or misleading information in the application for registration and by adding provisions allowing the Office of Attorney General to deny an application for registration if the home improvement contractor applying for registration has engaged in specified misconduct in the past. We must continue to protect home owners and the hard working home improvement business owners in our Commonwealth from unscrupulous contractors who seek to skate around the law and rob home owners of their biggest investment. |
Introduced as SB1266