California Realtors® win fight against point-of-sale energy audits
A massive lobbying effort by the California Association of Realtors® (C.A.R.) recently helped to remove an onerous provision from Assembly Bill 2678, (Núñez-Laird), Time-of-Sale Energy Audits. This effort was capped by “Legislative Day,” June 4th in Sacramento, where well over 1000 California Realtors®, including myself, met at the state capitol. Protesting this bill was high on the agenda.
Prior to the revision, the bill would have “required homes and commercial property on the market in California to undergo an energy audit at point-of-sale and mandated energy efficiency investments,” according to C.A.R. Although a “green” organization, C.A.R. opposed this aspect of the bill because it would have forced each affected property to undergo retrofits and upgrades, adding thousands of dollars in cost to every sale. Another reason for opposition was that only a relatively small percentage of all homes would have been upgraded as a result of this measure.
As an example of what the bill would have demanded, each home sold in the state would have had to replace windows that did not meet the minimum energy efficiency standard. This one item alone would have had an expensive impact on almost every older house sale.
C.A.R.’s legislative victory exemplifies how this Realtor® organization benefits not only its members, but the home buying and selling public as well.