AUSTIN, TEXAS – The Texas Association of Builders (TAB) captured three Association Excellence Awards at the National Association of Builders (NAHB) Association of Leadership Institute. TAB won for Best Service to Members, Best Government Affairs Effort – Regionally and Best Association Operations Program Administered. Winners in more than 130 categories were announced earlier this month.

The Best Service to Members program was for TAB’s comprehensive set of contractual documents that include almost 100 Texas–specific residential construction contracts and addendums. These documents provide an valuable benefit to builders and consumers in the form of enhanced legal protections, reduced liability, clear legal compliance with Texas laws and a solid written warranty with some of the strongest performance standards in the nation. While the contracts package was first offered in 1999, the contracts package is updated to reflect changes to the law following each Texas Legislative Session. The package has evolved from six simple documents to almost 100 contracts and addendums. The 2015 updates include new agreements, stream-lined contracts, mandated statutory and case law changes, and revised warranty and performance standards to reflect current engineering and construction practices.

TAB’s Government Affairs team worked diligently on the statutorily circumventing inflexible energy code mandates, which won for Best Government Affairs Effort – Regionally. TAB passed a bill through the 2015 Texas Legislature that provides for less stringent performance path scores and sets a six year energy code amendment cycle for state energy codes.  As a result of overly rigid energy code mandates, which lacked market justification and significantly increased the price of homes in some of the most cost-sensitive markets, it was necessary to relieve this mounting problem at the state level by passing legislation to alleviate the negative effect that ever increasing energy codes were putting on the home building industry in Texas. It was incumbent upon TAB to address the political realities of passing a bill over the strong objections of the powerful manufacturer’s lobby and the influential environmental interest groups. The achieved goal was to pass long-term legislation that would alleviate the negative effects of rising energy codes, while both responding to and overcoming the objections of opponents.

For Best Association Operations Program Administered, TAB created a Texas Executive Officers Council (TEOC) Handbook. The TEOC Handbook was developed to contain all the resources - or where best to find more information - that an EO needs in an easy-to-use informational resource guide. The goal in developing the handbook was to provide EOs with a definitive source in which to find everything from Texas Association of Builders and NAHB contact lists to information on membership reporting to member benefits to bylaws. The handbook also contains NAHB's Guide for New EOs.