FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Owner’s Obligation Giving Notice to Cure to Contractor and Analyzing Repair Protocol

November 23, 2016 — David Adelstein – Florida Construction Legal Updates
Recently, I read an informative article from another attorney addressing considerations of an owner when it receives a repair protocol in response to a Florida Statutes Chapter 558 notice of defect letter. This is a well-written article and raises two important issues applicable to construction defect disputes: 1) how is an owner supposed to respond to a repair protocol submitted by a contractor in accordance with Florida’s 558 notice of construction defects procedure and 2) irrespective of Florida’s 558 procedure, how is an owner supposed to treat a contractual notice to cure / notice of defect requirement that requires the owner to give the contractor a notice to cure a defect. This article raises such pertinent points that I wanted to address the issues and topics raised in this article. 558 Procedure–Owner’s Receipt of Contractor’s Repair Protocol When a contractor submits a repair protocol to an owner in response to a notice of construction defects letter per Florida Statutes Chapter 558, the owner should seriously consider that protocol. The owner does this by discussing with counsel and any retained expert. The owner needs to know whether the protocol is a reasonable, cost-effective protocol to repair the asserted defects or, alternatively, whether the protocol is merely a band-aid approach and/or otherwise insufficiently addresses the claimed defects. Every scenario is different. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Katz, Barron, Squitero, Faust, Friedberg, English & Allen, P.A.
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@katzbarron.com

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California MCLE Seminar at BHA Sacramento July 11th

June 11, 2014 — Kimberly Albarq-CDJ STAFF
There are just three weeks remaining to sign up for Bert L. Howe & Associate’s next California MCLE seminar, UNDERSTANDING CONSTRUCTION DEFECT LITIGATION. This activity will be presented on Friday, July 11th at noon, at BHA’s Sacramento office: 2520 Venture Oaks Way Suite 435 Sacramento, CA 95833 There is no cost for attendance at this seminar and lunch will be provided. This course has been approved for Minimum Continuing Legal Education credit by the State Bar of California Committee on MCLE in the amount of 1.0 credit hours, of which 0.0 credit hours will apply to legal ethics/professional responsibility credit. The seminar will be presented by Don MacGregor, general contractor and project manager. Water intrusion through doors, windows and roofing systems, as well as soil and foundation-related movement, and the resultant damage associated therewith, are the triggering effects for the vast majority of homeowner complaints today and serve as the basis for most residential construction defect litigation. The graphic and animation-supported workshop/lecture activity will focus on the residential construction process from site preparation through occupancy, an examination of associated damages most often encountered when investigating construction defect claims, and the inter-relationships between the developer, general contractor, sub trades and design professionals. Typical plaintiff homeowner/HOA expert allegations will be examined in connection with those building components most frequently associated with construction defect and claims litigation. The workshop will examine: * Typical construction materials, and terminology associated with residential construction * The installation process and sequencing of major construction elements, including interrelationship with other building assemblies * The parties (subcontractors) typically associated with major construction assemblies and components * An analysis of exposure/allocation to responsible parties. Attendance at THE UNDERSTANDING CONSTRUCTION DEFECT LITIGATION seminar will provide the attendee with: * A greater understanding of the terms and conditions encountered when dealing with common construction defect issues * A greater understanding of contractual scopes of work encountered when reviewing construction contract documents * The ability to identify, both quickly and accurately, potentially responsible parties * An understanding of damages most often associated with construction defects, as well as a greater ability to identify conditions triggering coverage To register for the event, please email Don MacGregor at dmac@berthowe.com. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Don at (800) 482-1822 (office) or (714) 713-4956 (cell). Read the court decision
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Real Estate & Construction News Roundup (09/06/23) – Nonprofit Helping Marginalized Groups, Life Sciences Taking over Office Space, and Housing Affordability Hits New Low

October 24, 2023 — Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
In our latest roundup, Walmart adds their own generative AI, major airlines reduce their capacity at regional airports, autoworkers prepare for a strike as negotiations continue, and more!

• A nonprofit in Philadelphia is helping connect marginalized business owners with construction projects before bids are announced to improve equity in deals. (Kristen Mosbrucker-Garza, WHYY)
• While the traditional office space market has been rocky, the life sciences market has taken over, creating more than one out of every four new projects. (Greg Cornfield, Commercial Observer)
• Along with JLL, Walmart has joined the growing list of major U.S. companies supplying their own generative AI tools to some of their employees. (Lindsey Wilkinson, Construction Dive)

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Reprinted courtesy of Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team

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BWB&O ranks as a 2025 Best Law Firm by Best Lawyers®

December 10, 2024 — Dolores Montoya - Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
Bremer Whyte Brown & O’Meara, LLP is honored to announce the firm has been recognized for its fifth consecutive year in the 2025 edition of Best Law Firms® and is ranked by Best Lawyers® regionally in three practice areas. To read the publication, please click here. Metropolitan Tier 1 Las Vegas: Litigation – Construction Orange County: Litigation – Construction Metropolitan Tier 2 Orange County: Family Law San Diego: Litigation – Real Estate Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Dolores Montoya, Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP

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Protecting and Perfecting Your Mechanics Lien when the Property Owner Files Bankruptcy

June 19, 2023 — William L. Porter - Porter Law Group
Introduction/Overview of the Mechanics Lien Law The California mechanics lien is a powerful tool for contractors, subcontractors and materials suppliers to secure payment of unpaid construction debts. A contractor, subcontractor or materials supplier is allowed to record a mechanics lien on real property, based on the value added to the property by the claimant during the construction process. The recorded mechanics lien provides the claimant with legal right to force the sale of the improved real property and thereby obtain the funds necessary to pay the delinquent debt. Under the usual procedure, the first step is the recording of mechanics lien with County Recorder’s office in the County where the property is located. A lawsuit to foreclose on the lien must then be filed in the County Superior Court of that County, within ninty (90) days after the mechanics lien is recorded. The goal of the lawsuit is to obtain a judgment for foreclosure on the mechanics lien by way of a forced sale of the property. The net proceeds of the sale will be used to pay the unpaid construction debt secured by the recorded mechanics lien, assuming that sale proceeds exceed the amount of senior liens and encumbrances. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of William L. Porter, Porter Law Group
Mr. Porter may be contacted at bporter@porterlaw.com

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CA Senate Report States Caltrans ‘Gagged and Banished’ its Critics

August 06, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
According to the Sacramento Bee, the California Senate’s latest report said that “at least nine top experts for the new $6.5 billion San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge” were “’gagged and banished’” after complaining “about substandard work by the Shanghai, China, firm that built much of the span.” According to the report, reported by the Sacramento Bee, Tony Anziano, Caltrans’ chief executive of the project, “removed or demoted quality-assurance and fabrication engineers who tried to force the contractor to fix cracked roadway welds.” The report did not evaluate the bridge’s quality or safety, however, it “called for greater openness in large construction projects, a review of the weld problems by independent experts, and an investigation of allegations that engineering decisions were made by non-engineers.” Read the court decision
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Equipment Costs? It’s a Steal!

July 08, 2011 — CDJ STAFF

KCBD reports on the problems of a Lubbock, Texas contractor. It’s hard to do the job when your tools keep getting stolen. Corey Meadows, owner of Top Cut Interiors, told KCBD that he had chained an air compressor to a table saw. Since the thieves couldn’t cut the chain, they cut the table saw “and just took the air compressor and the chain.” Meadows estimates the thieves cost him $2,000 in damaged or stolen equipment and time lost.

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Appetite for Deconstruction

July 02, 2024 — Patrick Sisson - Bloomberg
The death of 206 College Avenue was slow and painstaking. Over several days in January 2022, dozens of bundled-up volunteers swarmed over the three-story property, a tired wooden boarding house built in the early 1900s in Ithaca, New York. Long used as rental apartments for Cornell University students, the 13-bedroom house was set to be demolished, along with several neighboring structures of the same vintage, to make room for a new multi-use complex. But while those buildings were quickly reduced to rubble by trackhoes, the house at 206 was deconstructed, piece by piece, so that its elements could be used again. The Catherine Commons Deconstruction Project, an effort by Cornell’s Circular Construction Lab, was a large-scale pilot designed to show how building waste can be kept out of landfills. As volunteers pulled nails out of fir, oak, and walnut boards and hauled lumber off to be sorted and redistributed, a team of eight workers with heavy machinery began meticulously sawing, slicing and removing 8-by-18-foot panels of the old building. These were trucked off to a warehouse, where they’d be taken apart and recycled. The labor that went into this process was substantially more than a typical demolition. But it avoided the societal penalties left behind at nearly every building and demo site across the US. The sheer volume of waste generated by knocking down, adding to or renovating buildings in the US is stunning: 600 million tons of construction demolition waste annually, according to the most recent EPA estimate from 2018. Roughly 75% gets ground up into aggregate and fill, and only a small share is recycled and reused, necessitating production of new material for the next project. For scale, municipal solid waste only accounts for 300 million tons every year. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Patrick Sisson, Bloomberg

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