Cambridge Massachusetts Building Expert Directory

NYC’s Next Hot Neighborhoods Targeted With Property Funds

August 20, 2014 — Jonathan LaMantia – Bloomberg
New York’s real estate world is filled with tales of ordinary people who bought property decades ago and saw values skyrocket to the millions. Seth Weissman is seeking investors to get in early on the next hot neighborhoods. The veteran of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and hedge fund Perry Capital LLC started CityShares, which enables participants to reap rewards from increasing apartment demand in gentrifying areas. Investors who pledge at least $100,000 to one of the program’s neighborhood-focused funds become partial owners of a group of buildings and share in the rental income. The first pool is more than halfway toward its target of $5 million, which will be used to buy properties in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant. Harlem in upper Manhattan is next, with a goal of as much as $20 million. Additional funds are planned for Bushwick, Crown Heights and Sunset Park, all in Brooklyn. Renters are pushing into those more-distant areas after getting squeezed out of the borough’s waterfront communities, where leasing costs rival Manhattan’s. CityShares is the first program of its kind and offers a way to invest in burgeoning markets that are poised to grow as New York’s workforce expands, Weissman said. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jonathan LaMantia, Bloomberg
Mr. Lamantia may be contacted at jlamantia1@bloomberg.net

The Great London Property Exodus Is in Reverse as Tenants Return

June 06, 2022 — Lizzy Burden - Bloomberg
Tenants flocking to London are driving up rents in the capital, reversing the pandemic “race for space” and adding to the UK’s cost-of-living crisis. A record 30% of homes let in London this year went to people who previously lived outside the city, according to estate agent Hamptons. The surrounding areas of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Surrey –- known as the Home Counties – now account for more than half of tenants moving in. However, people are tending to move to London for lifestyle reasons rather than because they are being summoned back to the office, Hamptons said. Study and changes in family circumstances are often providing the trigger. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Lizzy Burden, Bloomberg

Construction Mediation Tips for Practitioners and 'Eyes Only' Tips for Construction Mediators

December 05, 2022 — Stacy L. La Scala - Construction Executive
Construction mediation can occur during or after construction and prior to or during arbitration or litigation. But, regardless of when a construction mediation occurs, its success often depends on the parties’ willingness to exchange critical information well in advance of the mediation session. Tips for the Construction Practitioner

Schedule a mandatory pre-session call.

Are the parties working together and sharing information, or are they at war?
Have the parties shared expert information?
Have demands been published?
Will the parties be publishing their briefs?
What confidential information is not in the mediation brief?
Will the decision-makers be participating? Are there any decision-makers who are not available or “behind the scenes”?

Reprinted courtesy of Stacy L. La Scala, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Read the court decision
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2023 West Coast Casualty Construction Defect Seminar

March 27, 2023 — Beverley BevenFlorez – CDJ Staff
The 29th annual West Coast Casualty Construction Defect Seminar will return to the Disneyland Hotel in May. The event covers topics of interest to those in the construction defect field including prosecution, defense, insurance coverage, and science and technology. The seminar will also have networking opportunities. Attendees every year include professionals “from the legal, insurance, builder, contractor, subcontractor and numerous other communities.” May 18th-19th, 2023 Disneyland Hotel 1150 Magic Way Anaheim, CA 92802 Read the court decision
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Texas EIFS Case May Have Future Implications for Construction Defects

October 02, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
Lennar Homes addressed a problem with EIFS in homes built in Texas in the 1990s by replacing every roof they had built. Some of those homes had problems with leaks, rotting, or termites, but other roofs hadn’t suffered any problems. Lennar’s insurers initially refused coverage. Lennar managed to settle with all but one, Markel American Insurance. Their dispute formed the case Lennar Corp. v. Markel American Insurance Co. This was first tried before a jury and eventually appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. Brian S. Martin of Thompson Coe Cousins & Irons LLP discusses this case at Insurance Journal. Markel’s claim was that under the policy language, Lennar could not make voluntary payments without getting Markel’s consent, which they did not. But the Texas Supreme Court disagreed, determining that Lennar took, as Mr. Martin notes, “a reasonable approach to a serious problem.” Markel also made the claim that the whole amount of the damages was not covered by the policy, as they did not view the policy as covering the cost of determining the extent of the damage. The Court disagreed, noting that “under no reasonable construction of the phrase can the cost of finding EIFS property damage in order to repair it not to be considered ‘because of the damage.’” Mr. Martin concludes by calling the Texas Supreme Court decision “a frontal assault on several critical provisions of liability policies that will assuredly lead to further litigation.” He also notes that the decision “may indicate a shift in the Court’s approach in insurance cases to a more result-oriented jurisprudence.” Read the court decision
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New Hampshire Asbestos Abatement Firm Pleads Guilty in Federal Fraud Case

February 02, 2017 — Justin Rice - Engineering News-Record
For the second time in three months, a New England-based asbestos removal company pleaded guilty in federal court to wage and benefit violations. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Justin Rice, ENR
Mr. Rice may be contacted at ricej@enr.com

Discussion of History of Construction Defect Litigation in California

September 10, 2014 — William M. Kaufman – Construction Lawyers Blog
California literally wrote the book on construction defect litigation. Construction defects began to surface after World War II due to cheap track homes being constructed haphazardly on a large scale. Throughout the 1960s, developers began utilizing the services of subcontractors to build massive developments. Rather than having their own employees perform the work, developers began relying more heavily on the specialty subcontractors to perform quality control functions. In 1969, the California Supreme Court expanded liability for developers with respect to residential housing through the concept of strict liability for mass produced homes. Strict liability defendants in construction defect cases may include builders of mass-produced homes, building site developers, component part manufacturers, and material suppliers. Courts have noted that there is little distinction between the “mass production and sale of homes and the mass production and sale of automobiles, and the pertinent overriding policy considerations are the same.” Kriegler v. Eichler Homes, Inc. (1969) 269 Cal. App. 2d 224, 227 (1969). Accordingly, developers of mass-produced tract homes may be held strictly liable whether or not there is privity of contract. Ibid. Courts have held, however, that there is no strict liability against contractors or sub-contractors. See Ranchwood Communities v. Jim Beat Construction (1996) 57 Cal.Rptr.2d 386; La Jolla Village Homeowners’ Assn., Inc. v. Superior Court (1989) 261 Cal.Rptr. 146. Within ten years, attorneys in California were using strict liability theories to seek compensation for homeowners. The initial strict liability lawsuits in California in the 70s and 80s generally applied to condominium projects. The Construction defect “industry” began to take off in the 1980s due to the housing boom and the enforcement of strict liability claims by the courts. Reprinted courtesy of William M. Kaufman, Lockhart Park LP Mr. Kaufman may be contacted at wkaufman@lockhartpark.com, and you may visit the firm's website at www.lockhartpark.com Read the court decision
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Fed Inflation Goal Is Elusive as U.S. Rents Stabilize: Economy

March 12, 2014 — Michelle Jamrisko and Ilan Kolet - Bloomberg
Federal Reserve efforts to nurture a more robust rate of inflation this year are likely to fall short. The reason: the biggest gains in rents are probably over. The costs to lease residential real estate, the second-biggest component of the price measure tracked by U.S. central bankers, helped put a floor under inflation over the past two years as most other components decelerated. Now, with builders cranking out a record number of multifamily buildings and the job market still far from tight, the outlook for rents is the bleakest it’s been in four years. “Because the economy is still not in the strongest position and certainly the labor market is not in the strongest position, landlords really can’t extract much more in the way of rent growth,” said Ryan Severino, a senior economist at real-estate data provider Reis Inc. in New York. Also, rents are already high, which makes more increases difficult, he said. Ms. Jamrisko may be contacted at mjamrisko@bloomberg.net; Mr. Kolet may be contacted at ikolet@bloomberg.net Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Michelle Jamrisko and Ilan Kolet, Bloomberg

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