Does home improvement law have cracks in its foundation?

A two-story addition completed in four months tops is what was promised to Jeffrey Goldstein in 2009. Before long, though, he suspected that promise would be broken.

A couple of months into construction, subcontractors claimed they werent paid. And the contractor, John Succi, routinely arrived at the Richboro home without building materials and supplies, then asked Goldsteins wife to buy them. Succi also kept asking for more than the $80,000 price in the contract they Goldsteins signed.

Still, Goldstein said he wasnt worried at the time. He knew that months earlier, the Legislature had adopted the Pennsylvania Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act, which was designed to regulate the home improvement and repair industry. After he found strong evidence that Succi had violated virtually every aspect of the new law, Goldstein figured prosecuting him would be easy.

I felt completely protected, he said. I felt like it would be righted if I went to the authorities and told them what was going on.

He was wrong.

As it turns out, enforcement of the 6-year-old law is lackluster and relies on contractors to provide accurate information, according to consumer advocates and others.

Even the trade group for the states home improvement industry calls the laws enforcement lax, despite changes the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals Office, which administers the law, implemented last year to address complaints. Those changes include a new regulatory compliance unit, random checks of applications and devoting more resources to investigating complaints.

There are really no teeth (in the law)," said Peter Gallagher, president of the Pennsylvania Builders Association, which represents 5,400 companies. There is a number at the Attorney Generals Office that you can call and complain, and if you complain, theyll put it on their list, but that doesnt mean it (investigation) will get done in a timely fashion.

In 2010, when Goldstein said he first complained to the Attorney Generals Office and the Bucks County Office of Consumer Protection, he was told other complaints would be necessary before theyd investigate Succis business.

Last year four years after Goldstein first brought his fraud suspicions to authorities Succi went on trial for home improvement fraud. A jury found the Lower Makefield resident guilty of bilking 14 customers out of $2.5 million over at least eight years, in the largest home improvement contractor fraud case in recent memory.

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Does home improvement law have cracks in its foundation?