With the residential home construction business booming the way it is these days, it also stands to reason that complaints about workmanship and materials would also go up.

Although Tucson area builders are receiving fewer complaints, the situation here could become comparable to what's happening in the Las Vegas area - a market about four times the size of Tucson - where homebuilders have become the target of a lawsuit binge.

Although complaints about workmanship and materials have been on the rise in the Tucson area, the lack of construction defect lawsuits may be only because lawyers haven't been as active here.

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According to Marie Levie, assistant director for the Arizona Registrar of Contractors, the number of complaints grew to 357 last year. Fueled by an increase in the number of homes built, shortage of skilled labor and misunderstandings about what qualifies as a defect, local home builders have nearly a one-in-20 chance of having a homeowner dissatisfied enough to file a complaint with the state.

Compared to the 3,000 complaints from Las Vegas homeowners, filed with the Nevada Board of Contractors, Tucson's number is a lot better, said Canoa Development President John Shorbe Sr., board member and 2004 chairman of the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association. But he noted that Las Vegas built a record 29,248 homes during the year, a number that dwarfs Tucson's 7,438 completed during the same period.

"They don't do anything much differently than we do," he said. "So, when everything is considered, their numbers and ours' shouldn't be all that different, on a percentage basis."

Shorbe said he couldn't say why the Las Vegas percentage of complaints would be twice the Tucson rate, "but we've seen a good number of complaints from people who don't have the foggiest notion of what they're talking about."

He said the greatest number of complaints come from people who have moved from other regions of the country and are unfamiliar with Southwestern design and construction techniques.

"They're not used to stucco and don't understand that cracking is normal," he said.

Shorbe also blames media reports, which exaggerate the threat of problems such as mold.

"They see problems where there aren't any," he said. "There's a difference between how a home is built in Kentucky and Michigan and how it's built here. That's why the registrar's office is a good thing for both the builders and homeowners. The state provides a good third party to arbitrate these things. They can tell a homeowner that something isn't a problem or they'll talk to a builder who's sure there isn't a problem and say, ‘yes, there is.' The registrar's process is a great way to take care of issues without going to court."

Avoiding lawsuits is a crucial concern. A trend that started in California with complaints about crumbling slab foundations has spread to other states as homeowners go to court to seek financial compensation for construction defects. One California concrete company was hit with more than $5 million in damages for a defective foundation under a 40-unit condominium.

Kenneth Kasdan, an Irvine, Calif., attorney specializing in home construction defect lawsuits, has recovered more than $225 million in less than a decade. Kasdan blames the increase in judgments on cost-cutting and shoddy workmanship. But Jim Wadhams, an attorney with Jones-Vargas in Las Vegas, said the fault is a flaw in the legal system that makes large subdivisions vulnerable to class-action lawsuits.

Although Las Vegas is rated highest in overall homeowner satisfaction, the city has attracted national media attention for the hundreds of lawsuits, settlements and judgments over home defects. As a result, homebuilders are struggling to find liability insurance underwriters and raising home prices to cover the escalating premiums, Wadhams said.

"The technique is to start with a legitimate problem in one or two houses, then go into court and have a judge declare the entire subdivision a class without most homeowners knowing they've been included," he said. "All they need is one problem with one house in a subdivision and they have a foothold. It's a great business for lawyers but not for the homeowner with a problem, since after the fees are subtracted, there isn't enough money left to fix the problem."

For Tucson, Wadham warned that the attorneys are already looking to Arizona as the next target for lawsuits.

"Just like farm workers following the harvest, these lawyers follow the booms in mass production housing. Once developers start building 150 to 200-house subdivisions, the class-action lawyers start paying attention," he said. "My advice is to go as fast as possible to your state legislature and make sure they pass a law preventing any homeowner from being included in a class without permission, because, if you don't, what's happening here will be happening there."

Philip S. Moore may be contacted by e-mail at pmoore@azbiz.com or call (520) 295-4238.