When the world is going crazy, it’s easiest for me to focus on the obvious fixes.
What can I do to move the needle?
That’s what I thought I was doing while engaging the Virginia government. The goal was to alert them of a regulatory black hole that was adversely affecting families in a cornerstone market for all Americans, real estate and home construction.
What I didn’t account for is that the government here not only doesn’t care, they already know.
Unregulated fraud and criminality is an institutional problem with official audits and reporting. They just don’t care to fix it. Let me explain.
I have been shouting from the rooftops that DPOR (the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation) has not addressed known violations in my own case and similar cases. Alleged misdemeanors and crimes have been presented up the chain of command all the way to Governor Youngkin’s office with confirmed receipts.
I couldn’t wrap my head around why speaking with government officials here in the commonwealth was such a go nowhere process. The issues presented are plain to see and well supported with documentation, and yet there is a loop of nonsense that is impossible to breach.
Whatever is said, whatever is proven, whenever statements are contradictory – authority is somehow always correct, especially when they are wrong. It’s maddening. It’s also an act.
An audit by the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission (JLARC) presented to the governor and state assembly in 2018 states, “DPOR staff do not investigate all potential violations committed by regulants, even when they are aware of the violations.”
I mean, finally, a little honesty.
The responses from DPOR and the secretary of labor imply that there is no basis to my concerns that seem to match the JLARC findings, but the audit is not an opinion. It is an analysis based on outcomes from an internal audit conducted by Virginia leadership. It was formally presented to the governor and the state assembly. They know.
It would be impossible to conclude that the governor, the attorney general, the secretary of labor, or anyone at DPOR believe they are protecting consumers given the low enforcement rates and laughable recovery amounts in comparison to consumer losses. They are far too well educated and experienced for that to ring true.
What the current leadership is committed to is maintaining the appearance of regulation for the public – more importantly, for the Board of Contractors, the Real Estate Board, the Home Builders Association of Virginia, and the Virginia Realtors Association. The associations represent the state’s largest lobbying groups, while the first two boards consist of the DPOR ‘members’ who generate roughly 75% of all DPOR complaints.
DPOR ‘members’, who in other states without DPOR are simply called licensees, pay most of DPOR’s operating budget according to the JLARC audit. In other words, DPOR is not taxpayer funded, it’s member funded.
Inconsistent and subjective regulation that favors ‘member’ contractors creates a serious inequality of outcome, pitting consumers against corporate protections, with consumers losing ground at breakneck speed.
When you hear politicians say “reduced regulation,” understand that it means reduced consumer protection.
JLARC summarized DPOR’s operation as a known leadership problem that was vulnerable to fraud.
DPOR has several long-standing problems that impede its ability to fulfill its mission of protecting consumers through effective occupational licensing and enforcement. These problems have persisted because DPOR’s leadership has not identified the problems in need of a resolution or taken adequate steps to address known problems. These long-standing problems have contributed to staffing shortages in key agency divisions, inefficient IT systems that are fundamental to effective agency operations, and vulnerability to licensing fraud. “
The leadership has changed since 2017 and there is finally a new IT system in place, 8 years late, but under Youngkin the agency is not improved, it’s deregulating industries that directly impact health and safety. The focus has been to decriminalize the most reported categories and reduce regulation by 25%.
When crime is decriminalized, the legislators like to call it an “exemption.” The exemption is no longer regulatable, it no longer counts as a crime, and there is a massaging of statistical analysis that implies good outcomes because no one is counting.
You can use this link to read a recent memo from DPOR’s Brian Wolford (Director) to the office of the current Attorney General, Jason Miyares. In it, Wolford outlines the how and why DPOR doesn’t act against alleged fraudulent contractors and what the outcomes are like for victims.
In the cases referenced in the Wolford memo, DPOR failed to act for over a decade costing the impacted Virginian consumers millions of dollars in losses. The contractor named was still working in home construction as of the date of the memo since DPOR took no action. They couldn’t even muster a suspension of the offender’s license.
Why discuss this issue to the extent I have? Well, consumer, if you know, the story changes. I can’t predict how, but the leadership of a state can’t be found to discuss known violations of the rule of law without action and maintain the status quo, at least I don’t think so.
The illusion crumbles. In this case, it is the illusion of regulation and contract law that is shaken beyond what a bad economy can cover.
In other words, Virginia is for renters.
The state has not adequately protected your rights during a home purchase and stacked the deck in favor of developers and contractors who only have to meet the declining minimum standard as defined by DPOR. Virginia has rejected consumers and families as investors in favor of corporate developers and contractors.
Deregulated means just that. There is no oversight, no legal reason to do one thing over another, and the consumer is left with no protection instead of inadequate ones.
I will leave you with a recent letter I received from the current secretary of labor. Aside from misquoting me and attempting to change the crux of what I wrote to the Governor, it is symbolic of the responses from leadership. There is a near magical quality to the rebranding of the work that was done at DPOR when it is frankly not something to be proud of. Again, that’s political speech. It’s often close to the topic, inaccurate, and dismissive. It just doesn’t work when you’ve lived outside of Virginia and have had the benefit of experience with functional regulation.
My response to the secretary of labor is linked here, I think that’s fair considering that I was misquoted. If you don’t like clicking through, I will pull the excerpts and leave them for you below but the full letters are worth the read.
Until next time, consumers – keep renting.
-Andie
Further Reading and Documentation:
The following screenshot was taken from my letter to Governor Youngkin who passed it to the Secretary of Labor:
The Secretary of Labor, Bryan Slater misquoted me in his response shown below:
Sec. Slater even notes that this is not the norm, which was exactly the point of my letter. DPOR was not reporting to the Commonwealth Attorneys and acted unusually in engaging the AG. It’s close, but wrong and alters the substance of what was said.
The JLARC DPOR Audit Presented October 9, 2018
The Home Builders Association of Virginia announces it’s part in the reduction of consumer protection in Virginia code.
