A group of homebuilders wants to help two state agencies in their battle against unscrupulous home improvement contractors.

The Home Builders Association of Massachusetts is supporting a bill that would create a home improvement contractor council, or advisory board, that would provide recommendations to the two agencies that handle consumer complaints on which contractors to go after and what type of penalties should be assessed against them.

The board would consist of homebuilders, remodelers, consumer advocates, regulators and a representative from the Attorney General’s Office. A similar board existed in the mid-1990s, but was eventually disbanded.

“The whole trick to consumer protection is enforcement,” said Edgar Dworsky, a well-known consumer advocate and founder of www.consumerworld.org. “If you take one part of the enforcement mechanism away, which really was this [advisory] board, consumers suffer and honest contractors suffer.”

Under a law passed in 1992, home improvement contractors are required to register with the state Board of Building Regulations and Standards within the Executive Office of Public Safety. The board accepts consumer complaints and has the authority to revoke a registration or sanction an unscrupulous contractor.

But the situation can be confusing for consumers because victims of home improvement contracting scams who have used a registered contractor can also go through an arbitration program and seek restitution from a different agency that administers a guaranty fund. The Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation administers the fund, which can pay consumers up to $10,000 for unpaid judgments against contractors.

‘Internal Process’

Several years ago, a bill was filed to consolidate the program under the Office of Consumer Affairs, but the Department of Public Safety objected, essentially creating a turf war, and the Legislature refused to act on it.

“Unless and until the entire program is put into one state agency, it’s our hope to bridge the gap between the regulators and in the administration of the program,” said Benjamin Fierro III, legal counsel for HBAM, explaining why the group is supporting the creation of an advisory board.

In the mid-1990s, the Board of Building Regulations and Standards established a similar voluntary advisory board, but the board was disbanded a few years later. A bill was filed during this last legislative session to re-establish that board, and even though it received a favorable recommendation from the Joint Committee on Government Relations, the bill stalled in the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which was too absorbed with the budget discussion.

Dworsky, who served as the director of consumer education in the office of consumer affairs and business regulation and the administrator of the guaranty fund in the mid-1990s, supports re-establishing a permanent advisory board.

“I was a member of the previous home improvement advisory board when I worked at the Office of Consumer Affairs … It was a wonderful board that brought together different factions,” he said.

Dworsky said the board was able to offer recommendations to the Board of Regulations on which contractors should be brought to a public hearing and whether a fine should be imposed or whether a contractor’s registration should be suspended or revoked.

“Now, [without the board] it’s more of an internal process, without much input from people in the business and from consumers,” he said.

The proposal comes several weeks after the release of a national survey that showed that home improvement complaints topped the list of consumer complaints filed with state and local consumer protection agencies last year. The survey also revealed that complaints against home improvement contractors are on the rise.

In Massachusetts, home improvement complaints were actually the third most common complaint received by the attorney general’s office last year.