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    Ohio Builders Right To Repair Current Law Summary:

    Current Law Summary: According to HB 175, Chptr 1312, for a homebuilder to qualify for right to repair protection, the contractor must notify consumers (in writing) of NOR laws at the time of sale; The law stipulates written notice of defects required itemizing and describing and including documentation prepared by inspector. A contractor has 21 days to respond in writing.


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    Licensing is done at the local level. Licenses required for plumbing, electrical, HVAC, heating, and hydronics trades.


    Building Expert Contractors Building Industry
    Association Directory
    Buckeye Valley Building Industry Association
    Local # 3654
    12 W Main St
    Newark, OH 43055

    Columbus Ohio Building Expert 10/ 10

    Building Industry Association of Central Ohio
    Local # 3627
    495 Executive Campus Drive
    Westerville, OH 43082

    Columbus Ohio Building Expert 10/ 10

    Home Builders Association of Miami County
    Local # 3682
    1200 Archer Dr
    Troy, OH 45373

    Columbus Ohio Building Expert 10/ 10

    Ohio Home Builders Association (State)
    Local # 3600
    17 S High Street Ste 700
    Columbus, OH 43215

    Columbus Ohio Building Expert 10/ 10

    Union County Chapter
    Local # 3684
    PO Box 525
    Marysville, OH 43040

    Columbus Ohio Building Expert 10/ 10

    Clark County Chapter
    Local # 3673
    PO Box 1047
    Springfield, OH 45501

    Columbus Ohio Building Expert 10/ 10

    Shelby County Builders Association
    Local # 3670
    PO Box 534
    Sidney, OH 45365

    Columbus Ohio Building Expert 10/ 10


    Building Expert News and Information
    For Columbus Ohio


    Substantial Completion Explained: What Contractors & Owners Should Know

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    COLUMBUS OHIO BUILDING EXPERT
    DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

    The Columbus, Ohio Building Expert Group is comprised from a number of credentialed construction professionals possessing extensive trial support experience relevant to construction defect and claims matters. Leveraging from more than 25 years experience, BHA provides construction related trial support and expert services to the nation's most recognized construction litigation practitioners, Fortune 500 builders, commercial general liability carriers, owners, construction practice groups, and a variety of state and local government agencies.

    Building Expert News & Info
    Columbus, Ohio

    Municipal Ordinances Create Additional Opportunities for the Defense of Construction Defect Claims in Colorado

    August 22, 2022 —
    Municipal ordinances may provide additional defenses for construction professionals where state law does not provide sufficient protection for Colorado’s builders. Colorado state law can be a minefield of potential liability for construction professionals. Even though the state legislature has stated that it must “recognize that Construction defect laws are an existing policy issue that many developers indicate adds to for-sale costs,” the legislature has remained hesitant to provide any meaningful protection from construction defect claims, resulting in almost unlimited exposure for Colorado’s construction professionals. Given this background of state laws that do not go far enough in protecting Colorado’s construction professionals, it may be fruitful to review municipal ordinances for new defenses and to temper state law developments applicable to construction defect claims. This is an area of law that is only just developing in Colorado. In fact, the ordinances discussed in this article were only passed in the last two years with many cities only adopting the present versions of the ordinances in 2021. The two model ordinances discussed below are potentially helpful in three ways. The first model ordinance gives construction professionals a right to repair defects in the multi-family construction and in the common interest community context. The second model ordinance is helpful in two ways. First, it establishes that homeowners associations may not unilaterally circumvent ADR protections included in the original declarations for such communities.[1] Second, the ordinance reduces the risk that strict liability will be imposed on a construction professional where a building code is violated. Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of Ricky Nolen, Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell, LLC
    Mr. Nolen may be contacted at nolen@hhmrlaw.com

    Top 10 Take-Aways from the 2024 Fall Forum Meeting in Pittsburgh

    December 03, 2024 —
    Over 500 construction law attorneys and consultants convened last week at the confluence of three rivers in what became the first-ever meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of the ABA Forum on Construction Law. The Steel City was a fitting backdrop for a meeting focused on issues of design in construction. Thanks to the hard work of many, most notably the newly minted Forum Chair Keith Bergeron and Meeting Coordinators Kendall Woods and Michael Clark, the meeting's attendees brought home new connections and a host of new lessons learned. Read on for my top 10 take-aways from the 2024 Fall Meeting in Pittsburgh and feel free to share yours in the comments below. 10. An architect's standard of care does not require perfection. A common refrain across many of the meeting's plenary sessions was that any design that is produced by human hands will never be perfect. In recognition of our own fallibility, the legal standard to which design professionals will be held to account does not require that their designs be error-free. A design professional must generally exercise the degree of care and skill ordinarily exercised by professionals performing similar services under similar circumstances. Establishing what that means in each locality will vary and will most likely need to be supported by the expert opinion of another practicing design professional. Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of Marissa L. Downs, Laurie & Brennan, LLP
    Ms. Downs may be contacted at mdowns@lauriebrennan.com

    Implied Warranty Claims–Not Just a Seller’s Risk: Builders Beware!

    May 10, 2021 —
    One of the thorns in the side of every construction defect defense litigator is the implied warranty claim. The “implied warranty” is a promise that Colorado law is “implied” into every contract for a sale of a new home that the home was built in a workmanlike manner and is suitable for habitation. Defense attorneys dislike the implied warranty claim because it is akin to a strict liability standard. All that is required to provide the claim is that an aspect of construction is found to be defective — i.e., inconsistent with the building code or manufacturer’s installation instructions — regardless of whether the work was performed to the standard of care. The implied warranty claim is therefore easier to prove than a negligence claim, where a claimant must prove that a construction professional’s work fell below a standard of reasonable care. Additionally, it is not a defense to an implied warranty claim that the homeowners or the HOA are, themselves, partially liable for the defects where damage is due in part to insufficient or deferred maintenance, as it is for negligence claims. The only redeeming aspect to the implied warranty claim was that, until recently, it was believed that it could only be asserted by a first purchaser against the seller of an improvement, because the implied warranty arises out of the sale contract. Recently, the Colorado Court of Appeals opinion in Brooktree Village Homeowners Association v. Brooktree Village, LLC, 19CA1635, decided on November 19, 2020, extended the reach of the implied warranty — though just how far remains to be seen. Specifically, a division of the Court of Appeals held that an HOA can assert implied warranty claims on behalf of its members for defects in common areas, even where there is no direct contractual relationship between the parties to base the warranty upon. Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of Carin Ramirez, Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell, LLC
    Ms. Ramirez may be contacted at ramirez@hhmrlaw.com

    Appeals Court Reverses Summary Judgment over Defective Archway Construction

    February 10, 2012 —

    A judge has ruled that a plaintiff can go forward with her suit that she was injured by a defective archway during a birthday party. A three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeals issued this ruling on January 23, 2012, in the case of Trujillo v. Cosio.

    Ms. Trujillo attended a birthday party at the home of Maria Cosio and Joel Verduzco. A piñata was hung between a tree and a brick archway. Ms. Trujillo went to get candy that had fallen from the piñata, during which the archway fell on her hand. Subsequent examination of the archway showed that it had not been “properly anchored to the supporting pillars to protect the arch from falling.”

    Ms. Cosio and Mr. Verduzco argued that they could not have been aware of the defective nature of the archway’s construction, as it had been built at the request of the prior property owner. The structure was constructed without building permits. Mark Burns, a civil engineer testifying for the plaintiff, said that “a reasonable property owner would have thoroughly tested the archway to ensure it was capable of withstanding such horizontal forces before allowing children to enter into the area.” Mr. Burns noted that twenty rope pulls would have been sufficient to demonstrate the structure’s instability.

    The trial court rejected Mr. Burn’s statements, finding that the respondents did not have any knowledge of the defect and that a visual inspection should have sufficed. The court noted that this a triable issue, whether visual inspection suffices, or whether the property owners should have done as Mr. Burns suggested and yank a rope twenty times. The court noted that “although a jury may ultimately disagree with Burn’s opinion, it was supported by sufficient foundation and was not speculative.”

    The opinion was written by Judge Flier, with Judges Rubin and Grimes concurring.

    Read the court’s decison…

    Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of

    Surety’s Several Liability Under Bonds

    March 20, 2023 —
    When a payment or performance bond is issued on behalf of its bond-principal, the surety is jointly and severally liable with its bond-principal. This means the surety has several liability under the bond, i.e., you don’t need to pursue the principal of the bond to pursue liability under the bond, which is a separate written intrument. Thus, if you are claiming damages of $500,000, by way of example, you can sue both the principal and surety under the bond, you can ONLY sue the principal under the bond (which is rarely practical), or you can ONLY sue the surety under the bond (which, oftentimes, is very practical). In many instances where I am pursuing a bond claim on behalf of a client, particularly a payment bond claim, I only sue the surety and do not sue the bond-principal unless there are certain strategic reasons in doing so. This is because of the surety’s several liability under the bond and there may be solvency issues with the principal or contractual reasons that, strategically, make much more sense to exclude the principal from the action. In MJM Electric, Inc. v. National Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, PA, 2023 WL 2163087 (M.D.Fla. 2023), an electrical subcontractor was hired to perform electrical work by the prime contractor. The prime contractor had a payment bond. The project was delayed for two years. The electrical subcontractor claimed the prime contractor failed to compensate it for significant delays and out of scope work. Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.
    Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

    Engineer TRC Fends Off Lawsuits After Merger

    August 17, 2017 —
    In the wake of its merger with an investment fund, TRC Cos. has been busy swatting away pesky shareholder lawsuits driven by law firms who specialize in such litigation. Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of Scott Van Voorhis, ENR
    ENR may be contacted at ENR.com@bnpmedia.com

    Texas and Georgia Are Paying the Price for Sprawl

    March 15, 2021 —
    Cities in the Sun Belt South have been needing a more modern development model for a while. That's created tensions, both economically and politically, that have only accelerated during the past year's pandemic. My colleague Noah Smith wrote a column about this specific to Texas, but it's broader than any one state and it's useful to think about how we got to this point and why these issues are relevant in 2021 in a way they weren't a generation ago. There's an institutional reluctance to pivot away from the Sun Belt model defined by low taxes and cheap land because of how successful it was for key constituencies for decades. Coming out of World War II, there was a scramble nationwide to build more housing in response to soldiers coming home from war and pent-up demand for family formation. The combination of the automobile as the nation's now-dominant form of transportation and the passage of the Federal Highway Act of 1956 made building out the suburbs of less-populated southern states an irresistible growth model for politicians and economic development interests alike. If it required tax breaks and fewer regulations to lure jobs and people from northern states to accelerate the process, so be it. Read the court decision
    Read the full story...
    Reprinted courtesy of Conor Sen, Bloomberg
    Mr. Sen may be contacted at csen9@bloomberg.net

    Congratulations to Partners Nicole Whyte, Keith Bremer, Peter Brown, Karen Baytosh, and Associate Matthew Cox for Their Inclusion in 2022 Best Lawyers!

    September 13, 2021 —
    Bremer Whyte Brown & O’Meara, LLP is proud to announce Partners Nicole Whyte, Keith Bremer, Peter Brown, and Karen Baytosh have been selected by their peers for inclusion in the 2022 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America, and Associate Matthew Cox has been included in the Second Edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch. Each person is being recognized for their diligent work in the areas of Family Law, Construction, Commercial, and Personal Injury Litigation. Best Lawyers is the most respected peer-review publication in the history of the legal profession. Acknowledgment in both The Best Lawyers in America and Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch edition is widely regarded by both clients and legal professionals as a significant honor, bestowed on a lawyer by his or her peers. Read the court decision
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    Reprinted courtesy of Dolores Montoya, Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP