Southern Nevada companies in the construction industry go out of business every day

Steve Holloway has a front-row seat on what the economic downturn has done to the construction industry in Las Vegas…

We are part of a coalition that will be working on tort reform, namely Chapter 40, which is the construction-defect chapter. It is not working. I can give you an example. The most recent case to go to court (involving D.R. Horton) without naming names had 196 town houses in a lawsuit for some alleged construction defects. They alleged the same 150 construction defects they always allege. Only 39 of the units were awarded (damages) on just one construction defect. They were awarded a grand total of $66,300. That was about $1,700 per unit. The other units still had this on their record and had to put it on their title. As a result, neither the FHA (Federal Housing Administration) or VA (Veterans Affairs) will loan to a buyer of that unit so the only way you are going to get out of it is through foreclosure.

Problem No. 2 is the attorney who went out and solicited this lawsuit and used all these experts has been awarded more than $4 million as compared to $63,000 the homeowners got along with a clouded title. We are trying to fix that. We have been trying to fix that for years unsuccessfully.