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MHOAI Goes TO Washington

During the week of March 14th HUD organized a convention/workshop with the Office of Manufactured Housing and Standards (HUD) and The Council of State Administrative Agencies (COSAA). Attending this event were representatives from all parties that influence our housing market, such as manufactures, retailers, an agent from each state that has put in place a state administrative agency (SAA), and consumers. Illinois does have a SAA program in place. HUD invited three people to represent the consumer/homeowner to this event and Terry Nelson was one of the three.

Many issues were discussed regarding our housing market but the main focus stayed with an act passed in 2000, the Manufactured Home Improvement Act. Under this legislation each state must establish an installation program within five years that satisfies certain minimum requirements, including standards that meet or exceed the HUD model of the training and licensing of home installers and inspection of home installations. If the state does not establish a program on its own, HUD is required to implement its own program. Each state must create a dispute resolution program to resolve disagreements between manufacturers, retailers and installers regarding the responsibility for correcting and repairing defects after a home is installed. If the state does not establish a dispute resolution program, the HUD Secretary will come forth with theirs.

We are pleased to announce that while in Washington Nelson was approached by HUD to fill a place on their Consensus Committee representing the consumer, and she accepted their offer. Most work and time by the committee takes place via telephone conference calls and e-mail. She would only travel to Washington a few times a year allowing her the time to keep up with back door issues in Illinois. By being involved on a federal level she will be better able to watch how other states resolve issues and allow consumers/homeowners a voice from Illinois. While in Washington she was able to meet with SAA representatives along with other representatives of our housing market from about 30 states. One of the important observations Nelson noticed was that states which had a state wide homeowner’s organization, such as MHOAI, were the states that seemed more balanced and got things moving sooner rather than later. The three consumers that HUD invited were from states that are involved with the national homeowners association, Illinois, Michigan, and New Hampshire.

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