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A CALL FOR ACTION

A CALL FOR ACTION - The Importance of Understanding the “Reroofing Contractor Registration Act”


For more than two decades there has been a concentrated effort to regulate a defined segment of the roofing industry. Since 1997 we find ourselves opposing the same regurgitation of bills targeting solely reroofers. Working closely with the Texas Independent Roofing Contractors Association we have prevailed in fighting these bills in the past but once again bills have been presented in both the Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate which significantly and negatively impact our reroofing community.


House Bill 2101 and Senate Bill 1168 are currently in committee. It is in the interest of everyone in the construction sector to understand the impact such actions may have on our industry and know that today it is the reroofers under fire, but tomorrow it could be any segment of our industry. As such, we should all be informed of consequences of such badly proposed legislation and stand strong as an Association in ensuring these bills do not enter into law.

Here are some important facts you should know:


History

For the past 22 years, the Texas Legislature has been trying, and failing, to increase regulations on our Texas reroofers. We first saw this negative action in Senate Bill 259, filed in 1997 by Senator Mike Moncrief. SB 259 passed in the Senate, but with hard work and effort it did not pass the House. The failure of the bill to pass in the House was achieved due the ability of the U.S. Hispanic Contractors Association, in conjunction with the Texas Independent Roofing Contractors Association, to educate our legislators on the adverse regulations contained in the reroofing bills and the detrimental impact of targeting one very specific subsection of an industry while excluding the majority comprising the whole.

HB2101 and SB1168

The current bills presented in 2019 are identical in text. HB2101 is authored by Representative Calpriglione with Senator Zaffirini authoring SB1168. Both bills are currently sitting in their respective committees.


The content of these bills is specific to reroofers only. Both contain a great deal of detrimental regulations regarding authorization of fees, administrative and civil penalties, the creation of a criminal offense, and requirement of an occupational registration.


These bills are narrowly structured to the reroofing contractor while exempting roofers who work on new residential or commercial structures or manufactured homes. A reroofing contractor is defined as a person who engages in repairing, recovering, or replacing existing roof coverings on residential or commercial structures, as well as any anyone who solicits, advertises or contracts to repair, recover, or replace existing roof coverings on residential or commercial structures.


There are a number of elements of grave concern within these bills:

  • Penalties faced by a reroofer found in violation of regulatory requirements although much of the bills’ regulatory language is ambiguous in nature.

  • The ability of the commission or executive director to impose an administrative penalty on a person, regardless of whether they are registered or not, should they be deemed to be in violation of any part of the rules and regulations although the process for determining these violations are also subjective and not adequately defined.